Purging Purge
by Charon the Sabercat
Summary: Ulala, going on a whim, decides to find Purge and reform him into a good guy. Weirdness insues. For the Purge fans of the Ulala audience. FINISHED WITH THE ADDITION OF CHAPTER 6!
1. Purge isn't Evil, and Being Bored Sucks

Purging Purge

Going on a whim, Ulala decides to try and reform the "evil" Purge into a better man... -like thing, whatever the heck he is. This is a story for Purge fans which, although they may be far and few, I know there are.

Noize squinted his eyes, just barely able to make out a swirling, gray mass in the distances of space. "I think I see him, Ulala. Closing in."

"Roger." Ulala stood atop the RoverBoy (or whatever it's called), her eyes focused on her target. Her hand twitched slightly within her spacesuit, aching to push back a lock of hair that was tickling the corner of her eye, but past that, she refused to move until...

Noize pulled up beside the gigantic metal "P", launching a robot arm to steady the spinning tomb of Purge. Ulala set her trusty laser on low and shot open Purge's purple window, cringing when a flying piece of glass threatened to puncture her spacesuit.

Inside, Purge was dead asleep, barely alive after going so long without food or water. His hair was mussed, and the heels of his hands were bruised from pounding against the glass. It was a pitiable sight which made Ulala's chest ache just from looking at him. She gulped and began to pull Purge out of the metallic letter by his armpits.

"Um... are you sure this is a good idea, Ulala?" said Noize, his voice bordering on a worried squeal. "I mean..."

"Trust me on this." Ulala paused to check if Purge was breathing; he was, but lightly. He looked... sort of cute when he was asleep, despite the ugly purple disco suit. It was like watching an angelic, psychedelic mouse softly purring away in dreamland... "Let's head back to the station."

&&&

He couldn't help but moan in pain, for his chest was too tight to do much else. A tiny hand patted his arm as he wrenched his eyes open, taking their own time to focus on a petite, pink haired figure above him...

Purge blinked a few times, finding it hard to take a breath in. "How the... who..."

"Hi, Purge." Ulala smiled at him sweetly, closing her eyes and cocking her head. Purge noticed how her hair was down, and she had a hairbrush in her hand, which she waved at him while she talked. "How do you feel?"

Purge shook his head. "Where am I?"

"Well..." Ulala pushed back her long hair behind her ear. "You're in my room at the tv station. Do you feel okay?"

"Your room?" The gray-skinned one wiggled around a bit, trying to find his limbs, but couldn't move or see past the huge comforter Ulala had thrown over him. "What's wrong with me?"

Ulala let loose a small giggle, although it was a bit nervous by the sound of it. "Well, it was Noize's idea, because we didn't quite know what would happen-"

Purge suddenly began to panic, pulling at his arms to no avail. "I can't move, I can't Move, I CAN'T-"

"QUIET!" Ulala suddenly jumped up and slammed her hands over Purge's mouth, leaning on him with all her weight. "They'll catch us!"

A loud pounding came from Ulala's door. "Ulala, is everything okay in there?!"

"Everything's fine, Fuse!" Ulala giggled. "Nothing to worry about!"

Purge finally then took the time to survey the room he was in. It was incredibly small, oddly enough, with the twin bed and changing tube taking up most of the minimal space. Ulala didn't even have a night table, instead resting a clock, lava lamp, and a set of glasses on a clear patch of ground underneath her bed. The carpet was pink shag, and the walls were a calm, aged used-to-be-white yellow, which oddly matched the bright pink changing-room tube which Ulala had left open. Purge himself was tucked deep within Ulala's small bed, covered by (unknown to him) Ulala's favorite quilt, his head resting on a Hello Kitty pillow given to her and autographed by Space Michael himself.

He also noticed that he was tucked into the crook of Ulala's neck, which made him blush profusely. She waited until Fuse's footsteps faded away in the distance before rolling off of her prisoner, pulling away her quilt to show him that he had been tied to her bed with microphone cable.

"Me and Noize figured that you'd freak, so we-" She scrunched up her face, purposely making herself as cute as possible. "Kiii-eeeennn-da had to tie you up so you wouldn't run away."

Purge checked his chest and, sure enough, he was tied tighter there than any other place on his body, which explained his inability to breathe. In fact, he told Ulala this fact.

"I CAN BARELY BREATHE!" he screamed again, the color now running out of his face in a primal panic. Ulala once again threw her hands across his mouth and leaned on him.

"_QUIET_!" She waited for him to calm down, then held her hands to her chest. "I'm sorry about that. I'll loosen the wires for you."

Ulala bent down and out of sight to the bound Purge, who was trying to wriggle out of the wires as Ulala undid them. After a while, he gave up, and slumped onto the bed in a stupor. He barely even acknowledged that he was in his black-and-white cloak, not thinking about how he was dressed in his disco suit when he was shot into space.

"So, how 'bout them Yankees?"

"What?"

"Nothing." Ulala's head popped out from the bedside, smiling her innocent child smile that she used only for the guests. "Now, I'm going to go get breakfast for us both. Do you like waffles?"

"Why am I in your room?" Purge forced out of his tired mouth.

"I'll get you waffles." Ulala stood up and skipped out of the room, letting the door lock behind her.

&&&

Five.

Four.

Th-

THUNK!

"OW!"

Fully aware that she had just stopped Purge from making a getaway dash by slamming his head into the door, but still remorseful for it, Ulala teased the stunned man out of the way of her door, sitting him down in the changing tube with one hand while her other hand supported a tray of breakfast food. She locked the door with the heel of her platform boots and sat down on her bed, passing Purge a plate of waffles and a cup of orange juice. "Eat up. You're probably starving."

The mousy man stared at the food for a full three seconds before taking it from Ulala's hands, sipping the orange juice first. Ulala herself sat on the bed and slowly nibbled her waffles while Purge began to ask questions.

"Well, my fair Ulala," he purred, switching into "villian" mode, "So we meet again."

"Mm hmm," she muffled, gingerly placing another piece of waffle on her tongue.

A little set off by her nonchalance, he took another swig and started again. "I am intrigued by your sudden... interest in my well being." He swirled his large glass of orange juice around like a wealthly socialite. "Might I ask you why?"

The tiny female held up a finger, then pointed to her chewing mouth.

At this, Purge slammed both hands on his hips. "Well? What gives?"

After swallowing, Ulala threw back her still down hair and picked up her orange juice glass. "Well... to tell you the truth... I don't know."

And with that, the mousy man choked on his OJ. "You don't _know_?!"

"Nope." Ulala took a sip and put the juice down on her tray. "I.. just sorta... I don't know."

She flipped her hair around with a snap of her neck and began working it around her ear, which began to make Purge think that is was some kind of nervous twitch of hers. "I... had a dream, and it'd take too long to explain it, but I..."

Ulala began to sink into herself, almost like she wanted to slip out of existance. "Well, I, uh... um... I..."

"Well, anyway," Purge quickly interrupted, feeling a grating pity in his stomach just watching her. "That being..." He hesitated for a second, not wanting to say "being said" because nothing had been said. He decided to throw out a joke. "Mumbled, how did I get here?" He looked downward to get a piece of waffle, at last noticing his wardrobe. "And how did I get into this?"

Ulala sat up straight and smiled again, puffing herself back into the universe (metaphorically, anyway). "Me and Noize went and found you, and brought you back here. I had that outfit in my closet."

"Why do you have my jacket in your closet?" Purge asked cynically.

Ulala began to speak, but then the thought crossed her mind: Did she want to explain the Dance Trial?

"Never mind, I probably shouldn't know." Purge rubbed his temples with a worried groan. There were a few seconds of silence, the awkward silence that everyone has to experience once in a while.

Ulala sighed. "Just finish your waffles."

&&&

Ulala sat with Purge for the next hour, setting him up with a makeshift television (her Morolian costume got wonderful reception) and a stack of Calvin and Hobbes comic books up to his knee. He stayed occupied just fine, only partially freaked out by Ulala keeping a very close eye on him. He didn't try to start a conversation, and neither did she, so the whole hour was spent in nice, not-awkward but welcome silence.

That is, until Fuse called.

"ULALA!"

"YIPE!" Ulala jumped to her feet, accidentally slamming herself into one of her walls and scaring Purge out of his wits. "Fuse, yes sir!"

A tiny trap door opened up in the ceiling, releasing an equally tiny intercom which lowered itself to Ulala's eye level. "Ulala, what are you doing?! Your show's on in 5 minutes!"

"Yes, sir, sorry sir!" Ulala jumped into the changing tube and, moving so fast she could barely be seen, changed into her white "fatigues" and began to gather her microphone and gun holster. "Purge, I've gotta go. I'm locking you in, I've got a private bathroom behind a door in the changing tube, don't make too much noise, I'll be back by 3:00."

"What? Wait a minu-"

"BYE!"

And with that, she slammed the door behind her, locking it soundly with a click.

Purge wiggled the handle of the door, just to check if it was locked. It was.

"Dang it." He sighed, retreating to the Calvin and Hobbs comic books again.

&&&

12:15

Fifteen minutes, and he was already bored. Thankfully, he wasn't bored for too long, for he found the ORMVTV (Over-rated Music Video Tele-Vision) network and found himself compelled to dance. He leapt to his feet and began to spin to his favorite song, only to ram his foot into the door, then trip fall into the wall, and get himself tangled in Ulala's quilt.

Maybe he shouldn't dance, he thought.

&&&

1:00

He had filtered through half of the Calvin and Hobbes, skimming through the individual comics he had read in other volumes. He took a forlone glance at the television-

Hey, Ulala!

He jerked up from his comic-induced trance and began watching Ulala on television, covering some kind of ostrich farm in Sector 57, which was near Mars but not close enough to be called Martian territory. Ulala stood in a fake-proud manner in front of an iron gate. Ostriches swarmed all around the reporting figure, unable to get past the security gate. As he watched, one ostrich craned his neck over the gate, and began twitching his head this way and that to figure out what exactly Ulala was...

"Now, these ostriches, despite popular belief, are actually farmed for their feathers. Due the to 2nd Amendment in the Endangered Species Ac-"

**SNAP!** The ostrich took a snap at Ulala's ponytail! Purge felt the laugh coming, but held it back; he didn't wan't to miss what Ulala had to say.

"OW!" The feminine reporter cringed back and held her hair while Noize laughed in the background. She giggled and touched up her hair. "Well, seems I have another fan." She looked at the snapping ostrich, which returned a blank stare. "I don't remember rescueing you. Where were you in the dance takeover?"

"Wawk!" the ostrich squawked before nabbing Ulala's microphone. She yelped and tugged it out of its mouth, then faced back to the camera. "Well, due to animal difficulties, this presentation will be a little short. This is Ulala, say-"

**SNAP!** This time, the ostrich's beak came down on one of her shoulderblades.

"-ing YOW!" She spun around full circle and pulled out her laser. "CHU!"

Out shot a bright pink beam of hearts, which hit the ostrich and pushed him and all his shyer playmates away from the gate.

She turned back to the camera, this time grimacing. "Forget the Endangered Species Act, ostriches must die."

But Purge missed this, for he was laughing too hard.

&&&

1:15

Now Purge was reading each Calvin and Hobbes in depth, for lack of much else to do. Every now and then, the picture of Ulala's face when the ostrich nipped her flashed through his head, and he'd chuckle. But that didn't last long. The boredom resurfaced soon, and he took a quick nap. It ended when he fell out of bed. He vowed to take no more naps.

&&&

1:30

Bururrrrururrurrururrururururruurrrrrrrr

"I'm hun-gryyyyyyyyyy!"

&&&

2:30

And Purge couldn't be happier. He was soooooooooooooooo flippin' bored. He'd read all of the Calvin and Hobbes books, two of them twice, nothing was on tv, and believe it or not, he actually wanted to talk to Ulala. Wanted to talk to somebody, anybody was better than nobody.

Bururururrrrururuuruurururrrrrrrrrrrr

And he was also PAINFULLY HUNGRY!

He took a forlorn glance at Ulala's changing tube. "I wonder if she has my disco suit in there."

&&&

3:15

Ulala ran into the room and slammed the door behind her, a strap of hertop torn and one of her ponytails down, the rubber band holding it having been pulled off by a crazed fanboy. Despite having a rough day outside, her usually peaceful room wasn't much comfort now, either.

"Ulala!"

"Purge?" The little woman jumped and glanced around her room; he wasn't there! "Purge, where are you?"

"In your changing tube!"

Ulala blinked in surprise, then jerked on the tube's door, unable to open it. "Why are you in there?"

"I wanted to see if you had my disco suit!"

That's weird, thought Ulala, but then she remembered that she did have it and discarded the odd feeling she felt from the statement. She tugged at the door again. "Well, did you find it?"

And then, who should open the door and pop his head out of the tube... but Space Michael? He cried out in Purge's voice, "_Does it look like I found it_?"

"GAH! PURGE!" Ulala abruptly pushed him back into the pod and punched in a code, and out he popped in his desired clothes, landing face-first on Ulala's bed without his feet leaving the tube (her room was that small!). "That should teach you for poking around in a woman's closet!"

"Sorry!" Purge took off his sunglasses and stuffed them in his pocket. He sneered evilly, glancing at Ulala with an evil, mousy eye. "I saw you make friends with that ostrich on tv."

Ulala blushed, covering one of her cheeks and turning the uncovered one to the wall. "I-"

"I'm hungry," interjected the teenager. "When's dinner?"

"Dinner's not 'til 4:00." Ulala stepped into the changing tube. "You'll have to wait."

"I've been waiting since 10:00 this morning! I want dinner!" Purge stamped his foot as Ulala stepped into the changing tube.

"You have to wait." The was an abrupt flash, and Ulala stepped out in her peach dress and red sunglasses. "It's the rules of the station."

Purge scoffed. "Rules, rules, feh. I'm going, I'm hungry!"

Purge reached for the door, but Ulala caught his hand. She held it for a second, then rose it up to her cheek in thought, which made the 18-year-old Purge blush again. After a while, she dropped it to her side. "Well, I guess if I... yes, we can go."

She then grappled her hand onto his wrist like it was a fish about to jump back into the ocean, and pulled him behind her out into the hallway.

DONE! Notes, notes, let's see...

Calvin and Hobbes can pull you in more than a master hypnotist if you're not careful. Sadly, it does not keep you from getting bored.

Ulala's Ostrich Encounter is based on several accounts of real reporters being attacked by ostriches. I'm sure they share Ulala's opinion.

Heheh, Purge as Space Michael! Other versions had him dressed as Pudding, Coconut Ulala, and a silver Robot, but I thought Space Michael popping out of a woman's closet would be the scariest and most improbable occurence in the universe.


	2. Cafeterias are Evil, and Pine Sucks

Purging Purge, 2

Purge finally steps out of Ulala's room and into Space Channel 5's cafeteria.

"Let go of my hand."

"No."

Purge waited for a bit before pulling his hand again in an attempt to make Ulala let go. He failed. "Let _go_ of my _hand_,_ Ulala_!"

"NO!" The pink haired one tossed her hair again. "I can't let you go until I know I can trust you."

"Well, you can," Purge lied. Truthfully, he was going to run for the escape pods as soon as she let go... if she let go. Which she didn't. "Now, just let me go..."

"No." Ulala pulled Purge closer to her with a swift jerk, knocking his hip with one of her exaggerated swings. "Now, I expect you to behave in the cafeteria, okay?"

"I'm not five, Ulala. I can handle myself in front of-"

"We're here!"

Ulala swung open the door, leaving a shocked Purge to breathe in a gasp of shock. The cafeteria was chock to the brim with thousands of people, and it wasn't even the dinner rush yet!

Purge began to shake. "C-crowd..."

The frightened boy slowly stepped behind Ulala, who moaned in annoyance. "Come on, Purge, don't be difficult."

Purge slipped his sunglasses back on. "But... people...."

Her eyebrow slipped slowly up her forehead. "_So_?"

"I-I-I thought- Let's just go back to the room." Purge sidestepped his way back out the door. "I'll... I'll wait-"

"Oh, no! You made me come out here, Purge, so now you're going to eat!" Ulala took both hands and pulled him back through the door, hardly getting any traction on her platforms. "GET! BACK! IN! HERE!"

But then she noticed something. The cafeteria had gone oddly quiet...

She turned around. Everyone was staring at them, eyes slowly growing at the sight of the latest guy who tried to take over the galaxy...

GROUP SCREAM! Everyone ran out of the nearest exit, leaving the entire cafeteria vacant within 15 seconds.

Ulala stood in surprise for a few seconds, Purge still shaking behind her. The once-booming cafeteria was now basically dead, the tables strewn with leftover food and trash, the space-saver built in seats knocked off center in the hurry. The 25 dining tables radiated from the central power-piller like the rays of the sun, the unbearable lighting of the domed room adding to the illusion. It was a little creepy; from throng to cavern in less than half a minute, all because of one man...

A voice called out in the silence. "Hi, Ulala!"

She shook her head. Enough of that crud.

"Hi, Noize!" She pulled Purge behind her again, having to walk all the way across a mostly-white, flourescent, space-age cafeteria to join Noize at an empty table. "Noize, you remember Purge, right?"

"How could I _forget_?" the young one sarcastically droned. Noize held out his hand to the frightened older teen behind Ulala, who was just now getting over the shakes. "Howdy. I'm Noize, I helped rescue you."

Purge stared at him in confusion until Ulala slapped the back of his head. He took Noize's hand. "Purge. I... tried to make the galaxy dance."

"Well, sit down, order some dinner." Noize scooched over, and Ulala sat down, pulling Purge along with her. Ulala cleared a spot off of the trash-covered table. "Dinner special."

The area above the clean spot sparkled, and out of the sparkles appeared a tv tray dinner with chicken nuggets, corn, and pudding with sprinkles.

"Wow..."

Ulala smiled at the amazed Purge. "I don't think you'd like the dinner specials. Do you like spaghetti?"

Purge blushed again. "I... I'm kind of allergic to tomatoes..."

"Really?" Noize asked, leaning over so he could see him. "How do you eat anything?"

Purge looked into his lap. You could tell, even with his sunglasses on, that he was embarrased to high heaven. "They... uh... they just give me stomachaches, I'm not technically allergic-"

"Well, you can eat something else then." Ulala cleared off a spot for Purge. "It's Friday, you should be able to order some buffalo wings."

Purge cast Ulala a glance out of the corner of his eye; she could just barely see a flash of pink from his iris. "I... I'll eat later."

He tucked his hands into his lap and stared at the table, his mind completely blank. Ulala couldn't help but stare, nibbling vacantly on a chicken nugget. Noize tugged on her sleeve (or, rather, her shoulder strap). "Ulala, can I talk to you?"

"Sure." The older pink-haired girl switch to the other side of Noize (the younger pink-haired boy) and lowered her head. Noize whispered into her ear, "What's wrong with him?"

"I think he's just shy." Ulala whispered back, moving a little too close to Noize's ear and tickling him. "Just give him some time to warm up to us."

Noize covered his ear, now wet with breath-condensation, and wiped it clean on his glove. He whispered again, "Ulala, I know this is a bad idea. Let's just call Pine. She'll arrest him, and everything'll be fine." He paused. "And that rhymed. A second time!" He laughed to himself.

Ulala, surprisingly, grabbed his shoulder rather roughly and shook him. "And _I_ know that this is a _good_ idea, so keep him a complete secret and trust me. Then everything will _really_ be fine." She lifted her head. "You okay, Pu- Purge?"

Purge was still staring, but he was staring to his right. Staring at an exit door...

Ulala gulped. "Purge?"

Purge looked back at her, a smile crossing his face. He tipped his sunglasses towards her and winked. "Be seeing you."

AND RAN FOR IT!

Ulala and Noize couldn't get out of those swivel chairs fast enough, for by the time they had caught up, Purge was halfway to the door! Ulala pulled a laser out of her holster. "UP, CHU!"

CREE! Purge's body fell to the ground, stunned but awake. Ulala and Noize lifted him up and worked him into a standing posistion. By the time the blood had rush back into his head, he ran again, this time falling from Ulala and Noize tackling him.

He tried to pull himself out from under them with his arms, but they wouldn't let go. He took swipes at them with his fist. "Let go of me!"

Ulala, who was holding Purge's legs down, held up her "chu" laser and shook it, immediately calming Purge down. "Be happy I didn't use the 'hey' setting. That thing gives you one heck of a hangover."

"I told you we should've left him in space!" Noize shouted from Purge's back. "I said, 'Don't do it, Ulala, he's evil', but you said-" (and he accentuated it the way a child would) " 'NnnOOOOOooooo, he's not evil. Give him a chance', but I said-"

"Noize!"

Noize shut up, not expecting an outburst from Ulala. She looked posistively furious, and crawled to the amazed Purge's head and helped him up. "That's enough. He's not 'evil', and I'm going to make sure the galaxy knows that, whether you like the idea or not!"

She slowly stood Purge up, catching his sunglasses as they fell from his rat-like face. "I'm sorry. But you're not ready yet." She placed them gently back into his hand. "Here."

Unable to say much of anything, Purge took back his sunglasses and... put them into his pocket. He wanted to put them on, at first, but decided against it. He didn't have that scared feeling he usually had whenever he was around people... he didn't need his sunglasses this time.

&&&

Ulala led Purge down the hallway after he had finally gotten something to eat. He was silent, having lost his will to escape or do much of anything. He trudged along a few inches after Ulala, which made her worry and stop. "Purge, are you okay?"

He stopped, keeping his eyes on his shoes. He took a few deep breathes, began to speak, then stopped. "I..."

"It's okay." Ulala patted his arm. "You d-"

"Do you really think-" he interrupted suddenly. "That I'm... good?"

Ulala looked downwards in thought. "Hmm... maybe... not technically 'good'-"

Purge's chest sunk in despair, which Ulala noticed. She quickly added. "But you're definitely not 'bad'."

"W'll, what's that mean?" asked the teenager, finally meeting his eyes with Ulala.

She "hmm-"ed again, twirling the tip of her left ponytail as she thought. "I guess I mean... You're never going to be a Space Police officer, I know that."

He let loose a kidding breath, a kind of laugh a person laughes whenever they want not to be mean, but get a mean point across. "Not unless I suddenly turn into a 17-year-old girl with a Barbie doll figure and a cowboy hat!"

Ulala replied with a giggle; he was right! "That's true." She turned her body around so he could talk to him head-on. "But, on the flip side, you're no Chief Blank, either."

Blank stare.

"Man made of televisions that tried to take over the galaxy?"

"Oh! That guy!" Purge waved off the confusion. "I didn't keep up with the news that much."

"You were that leftover 1 of my 99, huh?" asked Ulala.

The gray one wagged his finger back and forth like metronome, sing-songing his voice. "Should've stuck-through the cre-dits," he sang.

The woman waved her arms above her head in a sign of surrender, pointing towards what she knew was Fuse's office, towards the core of the satellite. "Well, I know that _now_!"

A sigh made her turn back around; she saw Purge lean his weight onto his hip. "I didn't start watching the news until after that whole fiasco. You were the only person on TV worth watching."

Ulala blushed a bit and smiled. "Really?"

Purge nodded, his hair bobbing around like a fishing lure in a lake. "Really. I didn't even really like the news, because I hated watching all of those miserable people. I... I always... admired _you_."

With that, something within Ulala's chest jumped. Not much more than a week ago, she was battling it out with someone she believed was the galaxy's enemy, and now... he was saying he "_admired_" her?

Purge leaned on the hallway's wall, his palm resting just on the edge of a windowsill. "You were always ready for the cameras, standing there..." His eyes began to loose their focus as he began droning to himself, his face pointing to a window. "Always so poised and ready to entertain. You never looked scared. Reporting to over a million people all over the galaxy, and you never made a mistake... and you were never scared..."

And, slowly, something sort of melted between Ulala and Purge. Before that, something had kept them a safe distance from eachother, like two magnets, but now a small tug was pulling on the both of them, tugging harder on Purge's heart than Ulala's (but they didn't know that, of course). Purge looked back at Ulala, the sharpness of his features still there but the fierceness of his attitude gone. Once again, he was a mouse, but this time a caged mouse, pleading to be lifted from his cage and held.

Ulala, unable to speak, caused Purge to look back to the blackness of space, his mind once again calm, yet empty. A thick melancholy settled in the pit of his gut, resting there like setting cement as he watched the stars slowly pass by. How long he stood there, he didn't bother to remember.

Because Ulala's arm was around him before he could think about it.

He startled under the human contact, but the small one (who was taller than him in her platforms) kept a hold on him that kept him from running. "Hey, Purge, just between you and me?" (He nodded.) "I'm terrified of talking to people."

His small eyes widened, really dazzling Ulala with their shade of pink. "No way."

"Yeah!" Ulala stepped back and held out her arms to explain. "With a crowd, no matter what you do, as long as you try your best, someone is going to like you."

"Or you could mess up and make up to thousands of people hate you," Purge gulped, a chill visibly running down his spine. He composed himself. "One person is one person."

"And that person will either love or hate you, no margin for error." Ulala squeaked.

They both stood silent for a moment, pondering eachother's stance on people skills. Ulala was the first one to speak up. "But, either way... hmm..."

She couldn't think of anything else to say. If only someone would turn of that red light, maybe she cou-

Red light?

She looked behind her, a security camera slowly craning out of the ceiling and focusing on her and Purge with a red spotlight. As she watched, two more cameras lowered themselves on either side of that camera... then two more, then two more, then two more...

Ulala slipped her hand under Purge's sleeve and grabbed him by his bare arm. "Purge, get ready to run."

The pink-eyed one jerked in surprise. "What?"

"RUN!"

Ulala pulled, and Purge followed, and the secuity cameras shot security brand "chu" lasers at them as they went. Ulala pulled the hapless teen pulled Purge hallway through hallway, leading them towards the only safe place she could think of: her room.

She saw a break room door appearing ahead of her in the hallway. If she cut through there, she could spare a whole lot of running in heels and get to her room, faster and safer. The red lights of the camera drowned out all of the normal flourescents; blood red, as far as the eye could see.

Purge called out from behind her. "Ulala, why have the lasers stopped?"

Ulala swallowed a breath. "I don't know, just keep running!"

She skid to a stop in front of the breakroom door, opening it and-

"PINE!"

And yes, there stood Pine, along with her two little lacky deputies, drumsticks in hand. The cameras turned to speaker mode, and out of the speakers poured Pine's overrated theme song.

"People call me 'Pine'-"

The lackies jumped out from behind her, right on cue. "Pine!"

"Eastern Venus Space Police."

("Oh geez, not again..." Ulala moaned, holding her head. Purge couldn't draw his eyes away from the girls, transfixed.)

"If there's slime-"

"Bad slime!"

"Involved in a crime-"

"Bad crime!"

"We'll clean him up on the beat!"

"The beat!"

Ulala flicked her finger at just the right moment, and two Morolians popped out of the walls. They thanked her and quickly trotted away.

Pine pointed to Purge. "Get 'im, girls!"

Lily and Violet, the lackey's names for lack of anything better to call them, jumped in front of Pine in a flashy display of agility. "Drumstick throw!" They wound back their drumstick arms. "HIE-YA!"

They chucked them at Purge full-force, the both of them ramming him in the same spot on his forehead, just a little above the bridge of his nose. He screamed in pain and doubled over, clutching his forehead and wincing.

"What are you doing?!" Ulala stood in front of Purge and blocked him from Pine and her deputies.

"We're apprehending a dangerous criminal, Ulala. Step aside." Pine waved her hand to prove her point. "We don't know what he'll do next."

"Yeah, but I know what you'll do next..." Ulala purred, smiling coyly. Purge was just starting to get his senses back behind her, slowly lifting himself back onto his feet.

Pine lifted a blue eyebrow. "And what's that?"

Ulala pulled out her laser. "You'll leave poor Purge alone, or else I'll 'chu' all three of your butts back to TEXAS!"

True, Ulala herself wasn't very threatening. Lily, the green haired lacky, looked back to Pine. "What's your sister got to do with this?"

Pine stared at Lily before smacking her forehead in amazement. "Not Texas the sister, Texas the state..."

"Oh." Lily shook her head. "Okay."

"Purge has not done one thing wrong the whole time he was here." Ulala forced out of her tightening throat, her fear of head-to-head confrontations beginning to surface in her throat. "According to the 'Second Chance' amendment to the Space Constitution in 2115, any man or woman of evil intention cannot be arrested until any other disruptive behavior is brought to the public's attention."

Purge "hmph"ed from behind Ulala. "You know your amendments."

Ulala loosened her stance, still keeping her sights on Pine. "Well, I'm a history buff. Don't laugh."

Pine took off her cowboy hat and fanned herself, blowing back her bangs to reveal one heck of a widow's peak. "Well, Ulala's right. We can't make an arrest yet." She slipped the hat back on her head. "Keep him under your wing, Ulala. Next time someone calls, it won't be me answering. Let's go, girls."

"Aw." The lackeys grabbed their drumsticks off the floor and skipped away, the red lights of the hallway finally shutting themselves off. Ulala sighed and put her gun back into its holster.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Purge walked forward, his clapping slightly muffled by his gloves. "Well done, Ulala. Not even a stutter."

The small one blushed and hid her cheeks again. "Thank you..."

Purge threw an arm around Ulala's shoulders in a loose, teenager's way. "You know, there may be hope for you yet." He smiled, revealing that he had a bit of a snaggletooth on his right eye tooth. She replied with a small, closed-lip smile, trying to make herself look cute.

"Let's just head back to the room, Purge." Ulala decided to ignore the break room and take the long way around, starting to walk past Purge and stomp down the hallway.

"You're pronouncing it wrong."

She snapped her head around, eyeing Purge suspiciously. "Huh?"

"You say it 'purje', with a 'J' sound." Purge stepped forward to follow her. "It's 'pur-sh', like Persia without the 'uh' at the end."

She let the fact sink in; he did call himself that, and she guessed that the only person who could get him name just right was... him. She stepped back, standing face to face with Purge. "You know, people say my name wrong too."

"They do?" he asked, in a way that he didn't quite ask, but acknowledged what she had said.

"People call me 'OO-la-la' all the time." She looked up at the ceiling in thought. "Probably Space Michael is the only person who gets it right. It's 'You-LA-la'."

"'You-LA-la." Purge rehearsed the "correct" pronunciation, then smiled his snaggled smile again. "Ulala, then."

"Same to you, Purge." Ulala once again grabbed the bare arm under his sleeve. "Let's head to bed."

DONE! Notes, notes...

Michael does indeed call Ulala by her (probably) Japanese name of "You-LA-la" in the game. Japanese version players, I don't know about what he says in your world, I have the English dub.

What's the name of the other lackey? Her biography has been replaced by those stupid hints they give you.

There is a Morolian secret of "The BEAT!" in the game. Try it. It works. Mind also the "UP" at the end of the credits for BOTH games.

CHECK IT OUT! Center paragraph formatting! ALRIGHT!

Anything else? No. Other than the next chapter might include Michael Jackson.


	3. BuildABear Workshop is Stupid Expensive,...

Purging Purge, 3

Purge accompanies Ulala for a day on the job. Learn more about your favorite, shrimpy villain! Tell you one thing, I like him better than Blank.

Ulala was the first to wake up, 6:00 in the morning like she always did. She rubbed her eyes and stretched, pausing to pat some lint bunnies off of her woolen pajamas. Yes, her "Woolen Wear" old clothes doubled as her pajamas, since she hardly got enough spare money to buy actual PJs. Most of it, truthfully, went into paying rent.

She shook her head in shame, the aforementioned fact coming to mind. She thought about Fuse, and how Fuse was really a title more than a name. The station regularly shifted through directors, all of whome had to go by Fuse, or else some disgruntled fan would stalk him if a show got cancelled or something like that. The Fuse before the latest one was the one Ulala liked best; oo, he was fun! If she did well enough, he would sing along with her music, and he had such a friendly voice! That, and he didn't make her pay rent on her room. The newest Fuse... eugh, just the sound of his voice, happy or not, sent chills down her spine.

She then remembered where she was, and leaned over the bedside. There, on the floor, was Purge, asleep on a bed of clothes with his oversized coat serving as a blanket. His sunglasses sat beside Ulala's reading glasses underneath her bed, his face masked in a cradle of plastics. She giggled and poked his cheek. "Purge?"

He almost immediately snapped his eyes awake, not turning his head to join eyes with Ulala. "Hmm?"

"I'm going to get breakfast, okay?" she whispered.

He closed his eyes again. "Mm hmmm...."

She slipped out of bed and tiptoed her bare feet around Purge. "You can have my bed until you're ready to wake up."

"Mmhmm, thankyou, egfhm..." Purge slithered out of his nest of clothes, decked only in boxer shorts, and snuck under Ulala's blankets like a weasel. She giggled and patted his head, tucking in the corners of the quilt tightly. "Be good while I'm gone."

"Okay..."

"Night, Purge."

"It's morningnh, Ulala..."

She laughed as she walked out the door.

&&&

"HI, ULALA!"

"Hey, Noize!" Ulala weaved her way through a flock of cheerleaders and hovered across from Noize at the table. "I can't stay, I have to get back to my room soon. Purge is still in there."

Noize did a sort of a mix between a scoff and a giggle. "You sound like you're watching a toddler!"

Ulala blushed. "Well, when you think about it, I kinda am...."

Noize's eyebrow went up.

"He's got the social skills of a spoiled toddler." Ulala straightened her back. "I'm gonna teach him some of my classic charm, and-"

"Classic charm?" Noize crooned.

Ulala tossed her ponytails around. "I'm allowed to be a little conceited every now and then."

"Sure you are." Noize stuffed his mouth full of Froot Loops, meaning the conversation was over.

Ulala sighed. "Bye."

&&&

She came back to Purge sitting on her bed, the bed neatly made and Purge fully dressed (in his cloak). He was watching tv on the Boss Morolian suit, his eyes glazed. She balanced her tray on her arm and tapped his shoulder. "Purge?" she cooed, making sure she pronounced it right.

"Huh?" Purge's head snapped up, his hair catching the tray and knocking it off of Ulala's arm. He jumped and caught in within half a second, without anything having moved an inch from where it sat originally.

Ulala stood in shock for a moment, then applauded. "WOW!"

Purge looked at her out of the corner of his eye, his vision blank and... a little suprised. He shrugged, "Whatever" and placed the tray on his lap. "Pancakes?"

"I got a shortstack. I thought we could share it." Ulala sat beside him and slipped an extra plate out from under the shortstack, and took two of the pancakes off of the plate. "I can never finish a whole stack."

"Here, here," Purge nodded, pouring on a light amount of syrup. "You know they expand in your stomach, right?"

"Just like Marshmallow Peeps," Ulala mused, stealing the syrup and pouring the rest of the bottle of them. "It's all the starch."

Purge's eyes bulged at the sight of the brown, syrupy mess that covered Ulala's breakfast. "Geez, you want some pancakes with your syrup?"

"Quiet, you." Ulala took a bight, ignoring the dribble of syrup that was rolling down her lip. "I need the sugar, I work without breaks for most of the day."

Purge sighed, shook his head, and picked up a cloth napkin. "And why exactly do you? I mean, you're _you_, you should get a coffee break or something."

"Well, if I did, I wouldn't earn enough money to pay rent."

If you listened very hard, you could here Purge gasp. "But you're _YOU_! Ulala! You saved the galaxy twice, you should get a room for free, or something!"

Ulala blushed a bit, covering her cheek and pushing back her hair. "Well, i-it's the least I can do, what with you-" She turned to him, "Blowing up the station, and we barely having enough to rebuild it!"

Purge sighed again, rolling his eyes. "Look, Ulala, I'm willing to keep quiet about _that_ as long as you are, okay?" He licked the napkin and reached over, wiping the syrup off of Ulala's face. She felt her entire face and the back of her neck turn red, and she jerked her face away.

"Get off!"

"Okay, okay..." Purge rolled his eyes again and put the napkin back on the tray. "Just trying to help."

Ulala sighed again. She could sense it; he was trying, he really was, to be friendly. He lacked some essential skills, though. That would have to come up sooner or later.

"Well, anyway, I've gotta leave really early today." Ulala took a sip of water. "I'm doing a special, day-long broadcast on the New West Edmunton Mall that opened on planet Teles-lan."

"Largest mall in the galaxy," Purge defined.

"Precisely." Ulala's eyes suddenly dilated, and she doubled over, holding her stomache. Purge immediately put his tray on the floor and held her shoulders.

"Ulala!" He shook her lightly. "Are you okay?"

Ulala shook her head. "Too many pancakes..." She swallowed, breathed out, and sat back up. "I'm okay now." She shook her head again, and Purge patted her back to make sure. "Well, anyway, you're gonna be in here for a while. You might want to go back to bed."

"Why can't I come with you?" Purge asked.

Ulala thought.... why couldn't he....

&&&

So, thanks to Purge's suggestion, he was coming with them to the New West Edmunton Mall on Teles-lan, provided he followed a few rules:

ONE: No wandering away from Ulala.

TWO: Whenever she was doing a report, no wandering away from Noize.

THREE: Whenever Noize was busy with equipment, he was to stay where either she or Noize could see him at all times, which kept him from going from within a few feet of Ulala or Noize.

FOUR: NO GETTING IN THE CAMERA. This rule was stressed a lot.

FIVE: NO GETTING IN THE CAMERA. (Told you it was stressed a lot.)

Of course, he voiced his concerns ("I'm NOT five years old!") but eventually he quit and struck up another conversation with Ulala; geneology.

"My parents were both humans, obviously," Ulala said as she counted off relatives on her fingers. "Momma said that I've got a little bit of Kolalan in my blood somewhere up her family tree, which explains the pink hair."

"I see." Purge nodded, keeping his eyes out the window of the broadcast ship. "I thought you just dyed it."

"Nope, this is natural." Ulala bragged, tossing back a ponytail. "Dad was from Neo-Japan, and Mom was... well, Mom was half Caucasian, half Hawaiian, which-"

"Which meant she was part everything," Purge responded smartly, not looking at Ulala.

"Right! Em..." Ulala stood up, walked over to Purge, and took him by the chin. She pointed his face in her direction. "People like you better if you look at them while you're talking."

He blushed red, something very easily spotted on his almost white skin, and swatted her hand away. "I'm looking for something!"

"For what?" Ulala asked, knowing that excuse well.

Purge pointed out the window. "That."

Ulala, suprised that he was telling the truth, leaned out the window. Outside, a great many stars and a few planets. But Purge was pointing to a silver-looking planet, the planet of the Towlows, a slim, lankey species that had visited Earth many times in the past (the Earth people knew them as, and still called them, Greys, although the Towlows considered it a bit offensive). She nodded. "Yeah, I've seen that planet before."

"My grandad was born there."

Ulala jumped back, taking a good look at Purge. "NO WAY you're part Towlow!"

Purge nodded, his face solemn. He plucked the sunglasses off his face and looked back out the window. "Not only that. Quarter Towlow, something like a sixteenth of a Murisian (a shrew-like race named for the Latin word for "mouse"), and then my Mom was Italian-"

"You're too light to be Italian!" Ulala pointed out, thinking he had caught him on a string of lies.

Purge sighed. "An _albino _Italian."

"You're kidding!" Ulala gasped, covering her mouth.

Purge rolled his eyes again, still looking out the window. "I'm just a cornucopia of recessive traits..."

Ulala nodded. "Yeah, you're all messed up."

A few seconds went by...

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Purge put his sunglasses back on and leaned back in his seat, eyes closed. "They always _do_, Ulala..."

Ulala felt her face turning red and pushed away her hair, only to have it fall back into her face again. She sat back in her seat, guilt waying down her chest to where she slumped in her chair for the rest of the trip.

&&&

Purge sat himself in the cold, metal seat in front of the second-story guardrail as Noize set up a shot of the HUGE mall. Where he had placed the camera, you could see the water park, a little corner of the roller coaster, 52 different shops, the two signs that pointed in the direction of the Food Court and Movie Theatre respectively. He was upset that he couldn't move to another part of the mall to catch a sight of the ice-skating rink, but that would come up eventually. It was Ulala's way to make sure he (or whoever else she was working with) had a good time; he'd get to do his ice-skating.

Ulala, however, was doing her own prep-work. She straightened her Retro Suit top as well as she could, every now and then fidgeting with the microphone, and once breaking it off and having to make Noize fix it. She was just taking her hand off of it for the fifteenth time when suddenly she felt a JERK! from both sides of her skirt. She turned around quickly and pointed her two lasers at... Purge, who was holding his hands up in surrender.

"It was on crooked," was all he dared to say.

Ulala, at little embarrased, patted Purge's thick hair as she went to do a story. "You behave, okay?"

"Mm hmm." Purge dared to make eye contact with her out of the corner of his eye, but he could tell she was focused on the lenses of his glasses and, thus, couldn't see past them. He gave his head a quick hug. "I'm sorry."

"Sure you are."

Despite giving Ulala a fresh stab of guilt, she stood in front of Noize's camera and kicked herself into the perfect smile. "Good evening, space cats! This is Ulala reporting from the New West Edmunton Mall here on Teles-lan. We'll be giving you all day coverage of this beautiful place on behalf of our newest sponser..."

And her words trailed out of Purge's ear as he saw something to his right. He gasped a leaned over the guardrail, his eyes growing larger and his grip tightening....

A carousel! And actual carousel! Oh, the memories flooded back; Dada would take him to the carnival every Sunday after church, and he would always sit on the zebra, and his father would sit on the cat with the fish in its mouth, and the two of them would always have eaten a _bit_ too much cotton candy and have the giggles, but it didn't matter, because it was some of the few times Purge got to go outside and play. His mother would always fuss and make him wear long sleeves and pants due to his hypopigmentation (which is sort of like almost being an albino), which led to him being hot a lot, but-

"Purge?"

Purge instinctively reached out and grabbed Ulala's waist in excitement, just like he had always done to his father's leg whenever he was a child. "Ulala, look!"

Ulala did look, and she did see the carousel, although she wasn't as excited. "Hey, a round-a-bout! Neat!"

"Can we go?" Purge squeaked, squeezing Ulala harder.

"Ow, Purge, no! We still have work to do!" Ulala pried his hands off of her, pulling him along after her and Noize. "We have locations to scout!"

Purge cast one forlorn look behind his shoulder to the carousel...

&&&

"Don't stand there." Purge warned Ulala and Purge.

He was referring to the edge of the mall's wave pool, a cute little spot where you could see across the mall to the entrance to the sea-themed clothing store while also catching the smiles of many waving fans in the pool behind Ulala. A roller-coaster like railing hovered in mid-air just on the corner of the screen, barely noticeable for someone who wasn't looking.

"I know what I'm doing," Noize grunted.

Ulala nodded. "Just keep quiet and stay out of camera, Purge."

Purge shrugged his shoulders, his arms crossed. He had a devious looking smile on his face. "I warned you."

Ulala straightened up as Noize finished his count-down. "Welcome back, cosmic kitties! I'm here at the wave-pool in the New West Edmunton Mall, where people of all ages and stages gather to have fun at one of the biggest indoor water parks in the cosmos." A young Morolian, antenna barely past Ulala's hip, unknowingly walked into camera. He tapped his "shoulder" and turned him towards her. "Hello, young'in. Tell the people in TV land, what do you like about the water park?"

The little Morolian "smiled" by flashing a series of red and pinks on his screen. "Yeeba la seerasi tiri moro!" (I like the splashes, moro!)

Ulala cocked an eyebrow. "Splashes?"

The Morolian nodded, green hues flashing across his "face" in the Morolian equivalent for "that's correct!". "Weebla turi tala kee-leeble-la tusi yorlo, yaba sali willi-willi leedle ya!" (Whenever the roller coaster comes by, it splashes us, moro!)

Ulala looked confused. "What roller coaster?"

At that second, a roller coaster full of screaming patrons zoomed a few feet above the wave pool, splashing a whole buttload of water on Ulala and Noize's camera. At home, viewers could only see a yellow blury shape behind a wet lense and a harsh, hyena-like laugh.

They then heard Ulala sigh and moan in a deadpan voice. "Stay tuned. Space Channel 5."

&&&

Noize's next shot was of Ulala standing by one of her favorite scoops so far: A special Dance-Dance Revolution game which featured her as a playable character! She puffed out her chest and threw back her head. "Welcome back, audience! This is my favorite attraction at the New West Edmunton mall, if I do say so myself. This Dance-Dance Revolution station was produced by the Sony corporation in light of my saving the universe from the invasion of the evil Rythmn Rogues." She giggled for a second. "Imagine me, starring in a rythmn-action game, how fitting!"

Without warning, however, Purge suddenly jumped onto the machine, slipping a coin into the slot and beginning to dance to Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer". Ulala giggled and covertly stepped in front of Purge. "Eh, heh heh, more in five, space cats. Stay tuned."

Noize swiftly switched to a commercial while Ulala pulled Purge away by his ear. "I told you not to get in the camera!"

"Well, it's not like anybody cares!" Purge grunted in between pullings. "After the Morolians reported on me 'breaking into' and 'being detained' in your space station-"

Ulala jerked him up to eye-level and glared into his eyes, her entire body stretching to its breaking point as her anger took over. "Purge, all you have to do is follow a few simple rules, just a _few_, and everything will go fine."

"Ula-"

"But do you follow the rules? NO! You're acting worse than those little Olsen Twins at a Candy Craze!"

Purge, who had folded himself into himelf in anger, clenched his fists. "I'm not a toddler, Ulala!"

"No, but unless you start acting your age, I'll have to treat you like one!" She swiped his sunglasses violent off of his face, snapping his head to the side. "You look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Purge struck back like a cobra, snatching his sunglasses back and getting himself so close to Ulala's face their noses were brushing together. His pink eyes were twitching in fury. "I have been, Ulala, and I _haven't been seeing anything **good**_."

"Ulala!"

Purge sniffed and walked away as Ulala was called onto camera for a quick update. "I'm sorry viewers, it had come to my attention that there is breaking news on Morolia at this time; we go live to our Morolian Channel 5 reporter, 'Mark' Wally-weebles... flat, or whatever." She shook herself smartly. "Ulala out."

She turned back to Purge. "Now, Purge, I-"

Nothing.

Noize looked around him, scanning the crowd for Purge's signature hair. "Where'd he go?"

"Purge?" Ulala called out, keeping her voice low. Look to the right- no, look to the left?- No... Her breathing became shallow and quick... "Purge!"

Oh no, he'd vanished! She'd lost him!

"PURGE!"

&&&

Purge stomped blindly forward, intently entranced by the ruffling of his cloak as it flapped around his legs. Stupid Ulala, treating him like a baby. He tried to be her friend (Heck knows she needed it), but what did she do? Yelled at him for playing an arcade game! Like that was fair!

He bumped into a Towlow's shoulder as he walked, knocking him out of his stupor. He quickly and solemnly apologized and decided to see where he was... somewhere with no signs, apparently. He couldn't smell chlorine or beef lard, so he was away from the Food Court and Water Park; the smell of shiny metal was gone, which meant no game tokens, which meant no arcades... No nothing, really.

But he could smell water, or at least the humidity in the air. He followed his nose to a small artificial cave that was built into the middle of a plastic palm tree display in the hallway. He would've never seen it if he hadn't smelled it first... maybe there was something down there....

&&&

"I've been thinking about what I did..." Purge admitted to the dolphin behind the glass, the cute but apparently not _that_ intelligent creature poking at the hand that Purge had lain against the glass. "Maybe I was a little reactive... I probably shouldn't have wandered off... whadda you think?"

He lifted his palm and let only his middle and index finger drag down the glass, which the dolphin intently followed. Purge frowned. "I'm not a baby. Just because Mom and Dad couldn't get o- Oh, there I go, blaming my parents for everything that's wrong with me."

Purge took back his hand and instead focused on the dolphin's snout, its eyes being to far apart to look into without straining himself. "You know, I think past a certain point of maturity you can't blame your parents for anything that's wrong with you. You're at a stage where you can realize that something's wrong and either do something about it, or accept it. Anything I do.... my fault, no one else's..."

The dolphin, having lost something to play with, swam away, and Purge watched it go. He sighed. "So long, flipper-foot."

&&&

And now he was totally lost, having remembered he had gone down a flight of stairs, then up an elevator to a floor he couldn't remember the number of. He caught a shop out of the corner of his eye; Build-A-Bear.

Off the lightbulb went.

&&&

About an hour (and his last fifty bucks later), Purge was happily holding a small cardboard box that resembled a house in his hand, a content look on his face. He had found Ulala the perfect "I'm sorry" gift... now to find Ulala.

&&&

After Dance-Dance Revolution. He had actually, with the help of some rudimentary Martian, found the way back to the arcade where he last saw Ulala. She wasn't there, so he decided to take some of the quarters he had leftover from Ulala's present and play a quick game. Another kid challenged and beat him, but he was happy because in doing so, he had made that kid win the last 20 tickets he needed to get his baby sister a stuffed Dalmation from the prize booth.

His last words leaving the arcade: "Why didn't I think of that _before_ the Build-A-Bear Workshop?"

&&&

Time wa- Oh crud, he had been here since 11:00 this morning, and it was 2:35 now! How long had he been lost? Oh, it wasn't important, he just had to find Ulala! He clutched the Build-a-Bear box to his chest and began walking faster. He sniffed like a bloodhound, trying to find something that would lead him to somewhere familiar... Ice? Oh well, it was a landmark. Maybe it would help.

&&&

He was walking down the enclosed staircase to the ice-skating rink when something caught his ears. Choking, sobbing, in a female voi- oh no, please... no...

Purge leaned against a wall and breathed in. "Please, lord, don't let it be Ulala, don't let it be Ulala..."

He peeked around the corner.

Crud. Ulala. Crying her eyes out while Noize tried to console her, camera equipment tossed aside. Crud. Did he do that? He hoped he didn't. Crud. Okay, Purge, deep breathes. You jump out, she explodes, you give her the present later, end of story... Crud. He didn't wanna get yelled at now... Oh well, he had to. Crud.

Breathe in... breathe out...

Crud.

&&&

"Um, Ulala?"

Ulala's head immediately snapped up, eyes hopeful. It, apparently, hadn't been her first time hearing something that sounded remotely like him, he could tell by her reaction time. He blushed violently and looked downwards, the sudden eye contact throwing him a bit off. "Um, hi, Ulala, I'm sorry I-"

But he was already being tackled into a tight hug by Ulala, who had grappled him around the chest and was tightening her grip every second. He cast a sorrowed glance to Noize, who crossed his arms and refused to help.

Purge slipped the Build-A-Bear box into one hand and patted Ulala's back with the other. She had a bit of a bump from when the ostrich had bitten her. "Um, Ulala, I'm really sorry I snapped. I had no idea what I was doing... I shouldn't of... I'm sorry..."

Ulala pulled away, still a bit breathless, unable to speak. He pushed the Build-A-Bear box into her hands. "I got this for you."

Noize stepped up, glancing around Ulala's arms as she opened it. She pulled out a white rabbit, wearing a plastic gogo suit and blue headphones... A bunny version of her, made special at the workshop! She gasped and held it to her chest, words escaping her. Something inside of the bunny clicked, and an Ulala imitator's voice cried out, "SpaaaAAACE CHANNEL FIVE!"

She paused in shock, then looked back to Purge, a new tear escaping from freshly dry eyes. He looked down at his feet, smiling innocently and trying not to look proud. He shrugged again. "Sorry."

Ulala sniffed and hugged him again, this time much softer, around his neck with one arm while holding her bunny in the other. He held her back, also with one arm, while the other one hung limp at his side. It felt good.

&&&

Noize spun about on the ice like he was born on it, which he sorta was, being raised in Minnesota. The entire mall, all to themselves, courtesy of the owners. He whirled about on the ice while Purge stuck behind to help Ulala onto her skates, his bulky coat left behind so he could skate in his disco suit.

He dug his skates into the ice while Ulala tried to find her footing. "You think you'd have stronger ankles for a dancer."

"I-I-I'm not u-used to being in flats," Ulala stuttered, the "flats" being the non-platform ice-skates she was currently trying to wiggle herself around in. Purge every now and then would laugh, being as how Ulala was a good 6 inches shorter than him.

As she began to stand up straight, Purge let go of her shoulders and let her stand. He pushed himself away, gliding over the smooth ice. "Come on, Ulala, it's like roller skating." He knew himself that it wasn't, but he didn't feel like going into a lengthy definition.

"Like... roller skati-" Ulala at once lifted her foot, flailed, and fell right onto her butt, Purge lifting her up by the wrists. "I'm gonna be sooo sore tomorrow."

"It's worth it." Purge watched Noize do a triple axel before concentrating on Ulala again. "I mean, Noize can do it."

"Little show-off," Ulala hissed. She pulled her hands out of Purge's grip, only to fall once again, this time on top of him. He lifted himself up and grinned from the ice. "You know, today just keeps getting better."

SMACK!

"OW!"

DONE! Notes:

The largest mall on the planet Earth is the West Edmunton Mall in Ontario, Canada. Includes indoor theme park, water park, bungee jumping, live dolphins, and many many acres of shopping space. NEVER BEEN THERE. Saw a special about it on tv.

Sorry, I said Space Michael was gonna be in this chapter, he wasn't, I'm sorry, I'll get to putting him in somewhere.

Build-A-Bear workshop ROCKS, but getting a basic doll (stuffed bear with one suit of clothes) costs $20.00 in American money. No telling what it costs wherever you readers (Oh, who am I kidding? Fee-ona is the only one reading this thing. Hey, Fee-ona, could ya advertise for me? You know, tell your fellow Ulala fanatics, and whatnot? Please and thank you.)


	4. Fuse Sucks No Questions Asked

Purging Purge, 4 

Ulala and Purge go through a terrifying experience... involving Fuse... and Space Michael... sorta... just read.

He was woken up by choked breathing, which he couldn't explain in his own head, which caused him to wake up in a bad and slightly scared mood. Purge was a notoriously light sleeper (it was pathetic how little it took to force him wide awake). He shook his head and had his eyes adjust to the minimal, slightly red light that Fuse ordered be turned on in all rooms to avoid "tripped in the dark" lawsuits.

The breathing was coming from Ulala, who was bunched up like a ball and twitching in her sleep. Her eyes were screwed shut, her eyebrows furrowed... Was she having a nightmare?

Purge slipped out of his bed of clothes and took Ulala's hand, squeezing and shaking it lightly. "Ulala, you okay?"

She immediately stopped shaking, and her body noticeably relaxed at the sound of his voice. He snickered lightly, a strange sense of power pumping into his chest for a split second, but then released what he was doing and shook his head. He wiggled Ulala's hand again and whispered. "I'm going back to bed."

He slipped his hand out of hers-

"NO!"

She had jolted awake, grabbing Purge's hand in a tight, kung-fu grip, breathing like she had run two miles in a desert. She and Purge both froze for a moment, Ulala out of shock and Purge out of... well, shock, but in a different way. The only sound for a while was the sound of Ulala breathing, which subsided as she flipped her ponytails back and tucked her hair around her ear. "Woah... what the...?"

Purge felt his palm being rubbed by Ulala's thumb, and finally she found him with her eyes and made eye contact with him. "Purge? What happened?"

At first, Purge didn't know what to say, so he stayed silent for a bit, unable to escape Ulala's blue-eyed stare. "You were having a nightmare."

Ulala's expression didn't change right away, but she did look to the side after a second. "Oh my gosh... it was the same dream..."

"What?"

"The same dream that..."

Ulala shifted her weight to where she was resting her weight on her shins, facing Purge. She gulped down a bit of fear and began...

"About three days ago... I had this dream, where I was out in the stadium on Morodia..."

&&&

_Everything was real quiet... nobody was there, it was like a ghost town..._

Ulala stumbled down the stairs, her feet unusually wobbly in her platforms. She remembered everything. The giant stage that would become Purge the Great was straight ahead, and now that she had seen it become Purge the Great, she could recognize the chest "P", the hands, and maybe the feet.

But where was everybody? Every seat was empty, not a soul to be found. All she could hear was a blowing wind, which made no sense, since she was out in space.

_And then, I got this wierd feeling..._

_"Yeah?" Purge urged (that almost rhymed, hee hee!)._

_Someone else was there, but I couldn't see him... yet... But I hear him breathing, so I kept going forward..._

She definitely heard something now, and it was coming from Purge's stage. She broke into a run, and-

_I ran into the invisible wall..._

SMACK! Into the invisible wall.

_"But I designed that wall to let you in," Purge noted._

_I know, and that's what confused me..._

She pounded the wall with the heels of her hands, trying harder and harder with each attempt. She finally cried out, "LET ME IN!"

_But, then I heard something, like crying or... something, I don't know. I looked down... and it was you..._

A desperate sob came from her feet, and she followed the noise to its source; Purge! He was lying on the ground, his entire body (cloak and all) sunken into itself like an emaciated dog. He looked up at Ulala, tears streaming out from under his sunglasses.

_"No..."_

_You started begging for help..._

"Please, don't leave me here...!" Purge moaned, his breathing greatly exaggerated in a dream-like way. Ulala bent down to her knees, her hands still held back by an invisible wall. "Help...!"

_"Did you-"_

_I tried to help, I-I-I couldn't get past the wall..._

"Don't worry!" Ulala pushed harder against the barrier, trying anything to get her hand through. "Come on, come on!"

"Help me..." Purge sobbed again.

_Purge wanted to wipe away the tears running from Ulala's face, but was too engrossed in his dream-self's state that his muscles were locked up. "Then what?" he nervously asked, his voice cracking.... Ulala swallowed back a few sobs and continued._

_The stadium started to fall apart, and you were falling..._

Purge's section of the stage began to sink into space, the rest of the stadium dissolving into tiny particles like an Alka-Seltzer. He reached his hand up towards Ulala. "Don't leave me..."

_Ulala paused, which made Purge able to breathe again. "Is that all?"_

_Well, it was... the first couple of times.... tonight it was different... I got past the wall, and I caught your hand..._

Ulala's hand shot out like a rocket and grabbed Purge just as the ground fell out from underneath him. He held on with one hand, the other one somehow still on the wall, while Purge dangled beneath her like a Christmas ornament. She breathed for the first time in the whole dream and actually smiled... until Purge's hand began slipping...

_But I couldn't hold on, and... and..._

Purge's fingers slowly slipped from Ulala's grasp.

_"And?"_

_You fell. But... but you... didn't fall, it was me..._

As soon as Purge's fingers lost contact with Ulala, he changed into Ulala herself, and fell screaming into the abyss. The original Ulala jumped up, still held back by the barrier wall, and screamed "NO!"... in Purge's voice and body-

&&&

"It was like we had switched places..." Ulala choked. "I turned into you, and I watched myself fall..."

And past that, her throat was so tight she couldn't speak, only try to breathe as her eyes tried not to cry. And there sat Purge, leg asleep because he had rested most of his weight on his bad thigh, unable to move himself after what he had just heard. Ulala dug her face into her quilt, closing her eyes and inadverdently letting her tears go...

Purge slipped her head onto his shoulder and held her while she cried, grateful that she was a quiet sobber and didn't burst his eardrums with every breathe. He sat on his knees like that, rocking back and forth every now and then, which calmed Ulala down a lot. His eyelids got heavy, and he closed them to let them rest... and they didn't open back up...

&&&

Ulala woke up first, like she always did, and 9:24 in the mor- 9:24!!??!!

She gasped and tried to gain a hold of where she was, her entire sense of up, down, left, and right thrown off by waking up in the wrong direction. She was facing the wall her changing tube was attached to, and her quilts were thrown out of alignment. Purge was asleep with his head by the running board, having lost the way out of his bundle-of-clothes bed. She slumped down on the bed, letting an arm hang down and come to rest on Purge's shoulder. Eventually the dizziness subsided, and she was able to sit up straight on her knees just as Purge decided to stretch himself awake.

"Mornin'ngh," Purge grunted halfway through a yawn.

"Morning..." Ulala undid her ponytails and reached under her bed, pulling out a hairbrush. "How long were we up?"

"I don't know about you. I was awake for about 10 minutes or something..." Purge took the hairbrush and, sitting next to Ulala, began to brush her hair for her while she fiddled with her rubber bands. She sighed.

"I'm sorry that I fell apart on you..." Ulala admitted. "I try not to let stuff like that happen too often..."

"It's not illegal, Ulala, you can cry if you want to." Purge set aside a portion of hair for Ulala to work back into a pigtail while he kept brushing. "You're a girl, it's what you do."

She dawdled for a bit with one of the bangs that fell in front of her eye. "Oh, that wasn't sexist."

Purge shrugged. "Mind of a man for you, go figure."

"Like you're a 'man'," she giggled, finally taking her hair and fixing it where she liked it. He scoffed in "disgust" and gave her a pat on the back before standing up.

"Women."

"Boys."

And they both shared a nice, refreshing laugh.

"Let's go get breakfast," Ulala suggested.

&&&

Unfortunately, the door to the cafeteria, and the cafeteria itself, was CLOSED and locked.

"Aw, _man_!" Purge cried, kicking the door soundly.

Ulala rubbed her temple, studying the reflection cast of herself in Purge's disco suit. They had both changed into the first costume they could find, which (oddly enough) were the ones they were most embarrased to be seen in.

Purge hated simply walking around in his disco suit; that's why he had closed off the stage for his and Ulala's first dance-off. Even now, his eyes darted about the room in a frenzy, covering up what he could of his arms in hope that nobody saw him like this. Once, he patted his hip in search of his sunglasses, but found only plates of cheap, purple psuedo-metal.

Ulala was dressed in her "Super Ulala Suit", the pink dance-energy suit that was rumored to be underwear (and was treated as which, too). Her face was almost as Pink as the suit, and she hung it and slumped her shoulders and hoped NOBODY knew it was her. Maybe they wouldn't, she thought, for she had forgotten to put on her shoes and was at her normal height of 5 feet 6 inches.

"We walked all the way out here half-naked for _nothing_?!" Purge screamed at the door, his voice deepening strangely as he shouted.

Ulala smacked the door lightly with her fist in guise of actually getting angry. "That's what we get for waking up late... And this, on top of the dance on New Years-"

"Dance?" Purge's head snapped around, his eyebrow halfway up his forehead.

Ulala smacked her forehead. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's-"

But suddenly a part of the wall opened up like the door to a dum-waiter, and a rush of clothes on hangers zoomed by faster than a train. Scared poor Purge out of his wits, too.

"YAH!" He jumped behind Ulala, clutching her waist in shock.

"Purge, don't worry!" Ulala ruffled the hair on his head and explained. "The station's just doing a sweep for laundry." She suddenly stiffened. "Laundry- OH NO! All of my other outfits are on the floor!"

"So?" Purge ejected.

Ulala had no time to explain, for her entire wardrobe (plus Purge's only coat) rushed past them at lightening speed.

And so did they.

"NO!" Ulala shouted as she ran, keeping a close eye on the yellow rubber of her retro suit. "Don't take them, they're not dirty yet!"

Purge swallowed a breath from behind her, just now getting the message and starting to keep up. "You're kidding, right? You can't mean that you don't have one suit of clothes left in your closet?!"

"Not unless you want me going to the New Year's Dance as Pudding!" Ulala answered.

And of course, that made them both run faster. They stampeded through several hallways, running down a cheerleader once without stopping to apologize. They barely even noticed when Ulala's laundry took a different turn from the rest of the loads; they simply turned with it, forced open a door that got in their way, and ran inside.

But they stopped soon enough.

For the room they had landed in was enormous. The ceiling reached high like a movie villains lair, the walls glowing yellow with wonderful neon fringes of orange and blue. The A desk sat in the middle of the enormous space, dwarved by the 20 foot tall doors to who knows where. The opposite wall from them was a giant plexi-glass window, open to the beautiful space sky outside. (Not literally, of course).

Ulala and Purge both were amazed, standing in awe for many a minute before Purge came to his senses. "Where are we?"

"I don't know..." Ulala gasped, the impact of what she was saying not fully hitting Purge. "I've never been in this room before..."

Which, to Ulala, was a big deal, for she knew Space Channel 5 studios like the back of her hand. She took Purge's hand and led him up to the desk, stepping softly as hushing her breathing.

The large oaken desk sheltered an executive leather office chair with a phone and reading lamp built into it... but the desk itself was covered with pictures of Ulala. Newspaper clippings and celuloid photos, even a few pictures that were crudely drawn on scratch paper. There were so many that they formed a 1/2 inch stack on the desk.

Purge shook his head. "Wow."

Ulala stepped back a bit, a chill going down her spine. "Um... this can't be as bad as it looks." She wrapped her arms around Purge in a frightened way, and he returned with a combination hug and shoulder shake.

"I hear music..." This time, he took her hand and roughly dragged her past the desk, following his ears across the length of the room, up the few stairs which led to an elevated part of the floor which sat close to the window, and through a hidden door in the wall.

A Dance-Dance Revolution machine. A special edition Ulala Dance Dance Revolution machine. In a room, all by itself. No fancy wallpaper, not light fixtures, no carpet (floor was concrete), just the dance pad and screen. And as of now, a suffocating Purge and a freaked out Ulala.

"Holy Cow!" Ulala was hanging tightly onto Purge for security, even though the boy was practically begging to be let go. "Whoever owns this room is a freak!"

Purge forced his way out of Ulala's grip and worked her out of the room. "Come on, let's see what else is in here."

&&&

They stepped back into the main "lobby" of the hidden room and stepped through another door... and found the laundry room! A perfectly square area thanks to really good designers, lined with rows upon rows upon rows of combo washer/dryer machines.

Ulala's eyebrow shot up her forehead, Purge doing likewise a few seconds later. "Why would anyone want a door to the laundry room?"

"Maybe it's the guy who does the laundry?" Purge suggested.

Ulala let loose a weak "ha". "Nobody 'does' the laundry here," she rattled off in an arrogant tone. She began walking into the room, trying to take in as much as she could. "It's all done by computer."

Purge scoffed. "Excuse me for not knowing."

Ulala giggled as she heard Purge's footsteps begin to echoe behind her, the younger one trying to keep up. "You're excused."

"Very funn-"

"Wait, over there!"

Ulala rushed to the left side of the room, which was apparently the girl's side of the laundry room. She was able to spot a couple of her friends' (actually, more like people she talked to every now and then) names, scanning for the one name she dreaded as she ran down the alphabet. Q... R... S... T... U....

Ulala. A bright pink washing machine, once again covered with a various assortment of pictures of her. But these were not newspaper clippings, oh no, they were taken pictures. Some of them looked like they came from the security cameras, and a few of them had a Kodak insignia on them, pictures of Ulala in her bed asleep. It stuck out like a soar thumb among the numerous white Sears brand washers, and was softly rumbling with the sound of laundry being dried.

The music from "The Shining" began playing in her mind, and she stepped back once again and grabbed onto Purge's chest for lack of any rational thought. He returned the tight grip, his body slightly rattling from the shaking of his mirror suit. She looked up into his equally frightened, freaked-out eyes. "What are _you_ doing shaking?"

He gulped. "I don't have to be _you_ to know this is totally wrong..."

BING! The machine finished drying, and out popped all of Ulala's clothes, piping hot and sparkly clean. Purge reached down to pick up the clothes, but Ulala caught his hand and pulled it back.

"Nonono, it's okay, the station folds it and puts it back in my room."

Purge waited for this to happen... but it didn't. Even while they watched, another load of laundry finished drying. A series of robot arms dropped from the low ceiling, folded the clothes, packed them into the wall, and shipped them to their appropriate room. He began shaking even harder. "Is y-yours... broken?"

Ulala whimpered and began to do that shrinking thing again, her knees buckling beneath her. Purge tried to hold her up, but he wasn't strong enough to keep her on her feet. Her breathing became shallow and irregular. "I'm being watched by some freak who's messing with my laundry!"

She closed her eyes and felt the muscles in her chest crumpling up like a paper bag. She was shaking like a cold Chihauhau dog, trying hard to convince herself that she wasn't where she thought she was... maybe it would go away... she was having another nightmare, a nightmare about "The Shining"... oh, go away, go away!

Purge, too, was having a morale failure at this point. He was huddled over Ulala, patting and rubbing her back trying to get her to calm down, but she wouldn't. He felt the same shuddering feeling in his chest, and his throat wouldn't allow him to speak; but at the same time, his mind was racing. Who could do this? Who was so powerful within this station? Who had this much contact with Ulala? Who did so much here that he deserved the proverbial director's seat in-

"FUSE!"

Purge's shout came out of nowhere, and it scared Ulala near to death. She leapt out of his arms and scrambled about on the floor, soon being unceremoniasly yanked off of the ground by her shoulder joint.

Purge held tightly to that awkward area where your arm joins your shoulder, just a little bit past the armpit. He shook her roughly, his face both terrified and joyful in an amazed-at-himself sort of way. "Ulala, come on! We have to see whose name is on that desk! Hurry!"

&&&

He once again took control and dragged her behind him, still holding directly to her shoulder joint before his fingers slipped and he began running on his own. Before long, they had reached the main desk, this time facing it from the front, and reading an until-now hidden placard with the name of the owner of both the desk, the office, the laundry room, and all of the Ulala paraphanalia.

**KRIKOR ARAM, HEAD DIRECTOR aka "FUSE"**

Ulala would've screamed. And she did. But not for that reason.

She did scream because the real Fuse was standing behind his desk, staring at the two of them.

In fact, both Ulala and Purge shouted at the top of their lungs as the gargantuan, stark white, obviously alien Fuse stomped to them. He was a HUGE man, just bordering on seven feet high. His round head had no hair, which didn't help at all, for his piercing yellow eyes shone out from his bleached-white skin like two raging fires. He was dressed in a pure white suit as well, with tiny black buttons on the sleeves and a red tie slicing down his chest.

(Granted, if this is not what you think Fuse would look like, then insert a description of what you think Fuse looks like instead. I just made this thing up on the spot.)

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY OFFICE!?" he wailed, both hands tightly fisted. "You both should know that this is all private property! Neither of you have the right to be here!"

Fuse's hand lashed out and grabbed Ulala by the forearm. He rose his hand to strike her across the face-

"HAI!"

BOOM! Purge's heel slammed across his jawbone, knocking him sideways, unconscious, onto the ground.

Fuse... THE Fuse... or the newest Fuse... a total pervert, violent, obsessive... and Ulala's mentor and boss for as long as she had worked here. One second of terror, as he grabbed her arm and got ready to knock her block off, and then total silence. He was lying on the floor, breathing steady, but not getting up. Purge finally let himself out of his Tai-kwon-do stance and ran to the phone, dialing up Pine and any other Space Police officer he could get a hold of. Her Fuse... The Fuse... was going to be arrested....

All Purge heard was a moan, then a loud THUNK onto the floor.

&&&

"What's going on here?" Michael cried, slamming the door behind him and locking it to make sure the rest of the staff didn't see. He had suddenly been summoned to the room, not long after he'd gotten out of the shower, of all things. There he was, just then getting dressed, just then putting on the aftershave, just then getting his hair halfway toweled of, when BAM! The police are suddenly calling him over the intercom, telling him to report to Fuse's office. That alone was enough to put him in a panic, but was that the last of it? Oh, no!

Fuse's office was a total wreck, with space police officers (oddly enough, most of them 17-year old girls in cowboy hats) searching through walls, desk drawers, filing cabinets, and a few were even carting in clothes from the laundry room! "Hello? Somebody!"

A gloved hand tapped his shoulder, and he spun around. It was Pi- no, Texas, wrong sister. She waved her hand in a "come this way" fashion. "Mr. Jackson, your station's director is being arrested for stalking."

"What?!" he breathed, holding one hand on his head in stress.

Texas sighed and held up several evidence baggies, each with a different picture of Ulala. Michael gulped and rubbed his forehead, already beginning to sweat (or maybe it was just the hair that was still wet). "How long has this been going on?"

"Well, our detectives are working on that right now, but the call was placed into our switchboard an hour ago." Texas swept her hand across the brim of her hat.

He had hired a stalker?! He moaned, remorse, anger, and a few other sensations he couldn't place welling up in his gut. "Who called him in?" Michael asked.

Texas bit her lip and looked with her eyes at the floor. "Well..."

"TEXAS!"

Texas's head snapped up at her sister's voice. "You're wanted, by the way. Over here."

Texas broke into a weak run, Michael following, his stomache knotting. Texas pointed in the direction he was supposed to run, breaking off to meet with her twin to discuss what to do with Fuse. He ran blindly forward and soon found himself on the stairway to Fuse's window... He also found Noize and Purge tending to an unconscious Ulala.

"OH NO!" Michael knelt to her side, Purge resting her head on his lap and Noize patting her hand. "What happened?"

"We don't know!" Noize whined, looking up at Space Michael, panic in his face.

Purge looked up (he was watching Ulala for any signs of her waking). "It happened just after I knocked Fuse out. I think it hit her harder than it did him."

"Oh, man..." Michael lifted Ulala's face and began patting her cheek. "Ulala?" (He said it "You-la-la", Purge noted.) "Come on, baby, wake up. Ulala?"

Noize's weak voice let loose a squeal of anxiety. Purge instinctively put a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes still fixed on Ulala. She was still asleep, her face expressionless... But her nose was twitching. He gasped and clutched her tightly, as her face slowly contorted...

&&&

"Ugh..." She coughed a few times, her head spinning, back aching, and her eyes blurry. Her nose stung with the smell of those expensive colognes that, despite being "the best money could buy" still made her nostrils soar and her lungs feel like tarpaper. She felt herself being pushed into a sitting posistion by two different hands, and just phased back into reality as Noize hugged her middle and settled his head onto her shoulder. "(cough cough) Too much- (cough) Aftershave..."

Purge laughed, which made her turn her head to look for him. Michael's voice spoke to her again, this time from the other side of the universe. "Oh, Ulala, you're okay..."

Ulala surveyed the area... a few lingering police officers, including the twins Pine and Texas, still gathered little bits of evidence from here and there and everywhere, while she sat there on the steps with her legs feeling like jelly. She let Michael take her hand and stroke it, head still reeling whenver she tried to talk. "Ulala, are you alright?"

She nodded, immediately clutching her head in her hands. YEOW, THAT HURT! The blood rushed into her brain, which made her eyes tingle, her ears ring, and her breathing momentarily stop.

"Okay, okay, don't hurt yourself Ulala..." Michael still spoke to her, but she kept her eyes on the ground in front of her. "Now, I know you've been through a lot today, Ulala. Do you understand?"

She sighed a weak "Uh huh", sounding embarrased at the sound of her own pitiful wail.

"Okay, now. Purge's gonna take you to your room, okay?"

"Uh huh..."

"You can take the day off tomorrow. Just try and get better."

"Uh huh..."

&&&

Purge, with the help of Michael and Noize, lifted Ulala onto his back and tried to steady himself. It was like trying to balance a sack of... not potatoes, because potatoes were lumpy and tough to handle, while Ulala was soft and completely limp in his arms. He held her bottom half by the shin with his arms while Michael fixed her arms to where she wouldn't fall off.

"Don't you worry about a thing, Ulala..." Michael patted Ulala's forehead gently. "Purge is going to take you to your room now, okay?"

"Okay..." Ulala answered, her eyes just beginning to focus now.

Purge bounced Ulala into a higher spot on his back, making her line up with his center of gravity. It had been a while since he had to give someone a piggy-back ride (the last one had been his younger brother), yet it was still a second nature to him. He marched out of Purge's office and down a few gratefully empty hallways, thankful that Producer Space Michael had basically banished everyone to their rooms earlier today.

About halfway there, he bounced Ulala higher onto his back, once again finding her slipping lower and lower whenver he stepped, only to find she was asleep. He debated in his head as he walked; she he wake her up? It was going to be harder carrying her asleep, but then again, she needed it... or maybe not. She was pretty enough without the beauty slee-

Woah! Where did that come from? Purge shook his head to clear his mind, scolding himself for thinking that, and blushing for no reason.

BOP! He ran headfirst into Ulala's door. "OW! Stupid- guegh- idiot-" He sighed through his nose and, after turning sideways, opened Ulala's door and stepped inside. Her closet was fully stocked now, minus two outfits she still had to collect, and he pondered putting on his coat... nah. He placed Ulala into her bed, working her into a comfortable posistion and tucking the quilt around her.

And dangit, of all times, _then_ she woke up.

"Emm, Purge?" Ulala looked up at the gray-skinned boy, he expression dreamy and vacant. "Oh, hey Purge, how you doin'?"

Still dizzy, he thought, referring to Ulala, not himself. He knelt to her eye level and pushed back some of her hair. "Go back to sleep, Ulala."

"Okay, little Purgie..." Ulala reached out and pulled Purge into a hug, which he tried to resist. "Little Purgie-kins, you my best friend..."

Despite the fact that she was obviously giddy and not thinking straight, a flutter of.... something rushed from Purge's ribs up through his throat like a flock of butterflies. He blushed and, not knowing it at the time, smiled like an idiot and hugged her back. "Thank you, Ulala."

"I... I go bed now, 'night." Ulala turned over and nestled in, letting Purge sink to the floor in a strange sort of stupor. He felt oddly... light, like he was made of something like a cross between a sponge and loose sand, and tingling feeling that went throughout his whole body that he couldnt' understand. He, after pondering it for a while and getting nowhere, decided it was better left until morning and laid down on the shag carpet, not wanting to dare make a bed for himself and risk another laundry fiasco. He fell asleep after a while, his insides warm while his skin stayed icy cold...

DONE! Woah, I'm starting to loose the humor here... Anyway...

I finally got Michael in there! And Texas! Don't know why, I hate them both, they need to die, but anyway... again...

Fuse got arrested, because he always came across as a pervert in Part 2. I think it was pretty safe making him an alien, because I don't know what ethnicity any of you readers are. I don't wanna offend anybody.

I HAVE MORE THAN ONE READER NOW! YES! HAHA! (Does victory dance)


	5. Purge gets Creepy, and Jaguar is Jaguar

Purging Purge, 5

Preparations ensue for the New Years Dance, so Purge's got a lot of work to do. Other characters abound.

Purge woke up first, oddly enough, a sudden blast of cold from the AC jarring him from his sleep. He shivered and rubbed his arms fervently, trying to warm himself up. He stood up and checked on Ulala; still fast asleep, hallelujah. So cute, too, when she was asleep-

Egh, there it was again! Purge smacked his head violently. Where was this stuff coming from?

Anyway, he bent down over her head and stroked her hair. "I'll be back," he whisper-moaned.

She smiled her in sleep. She took a deep breathe, and as she exhaled, one word came from her mouth.

"Jaguar..."

A dagger of pure shock went straight through his gullet; he stood straight up. Jaguar? Was she dreaming about him? _HIM?_ He was, like, 35! As her smile grew, he beat his chest to clear his emotions and changed into his coat.

He had stuff to do.

&&&

Breakfast was first. He got the cafeteria at the uneartly hour of 3:00, meaning that he ate his ration of Froot Loops with the Morolian staff. He, knowing a little bit of Morolian, made some small talk that went nowhere and instead listened to the aliens themselves chatter amongst themselves. He would smile as the Morolians all flocked around eachother like pigeons, their monitors flashing every color of the rainbow as they all went through a pantheon of emotions within the time he watched them.

But he couldn't watch for long. There was sleuthing to be... sleuthed.

&&&

"Buh buh, de dana dana duh dum dum..." Purge wiggled his way around a corner, keeping close to the wall. He grinned like a lunatic and hummed his own theme music as he slowly slunk towards Fuse's abadoned office. "Dana nana nana nana nana na-na. Dum-"

He stopped at one particular hallway, thinking he heard footsteps. He pressed himself against the wall, waiting for the steps to pass. They began to slowly fade away...

He chuckled and flew around the corner in a gallop, only to run straight into Space Michael's chest.

"OW!" Purge rubbed his nose, hoping that squished feeling would soon go away.

Space Michael stood in the hallway, weight resting on one hip, upon which sat his nightgown-garbed daughter, Paris. Stirred awake by the eternal duties of fatherhood (Paris needed a glass of juice and a bathroom break), he was usually found wandering the station at 4:00 with one or more members of his family. Seeing Purge out here, however, was enough to make him chuckle. He watched Purge finish working his bruised nose and let the boy blush and stutter for a while before speaking. "Going somewhere?"

Purge smiled weakly, stepping back by half a step. "Um... Hi, Michael. I was just, um-"

Michael turned to his side, pointing to Fuse's doorway. "It's unlocked if you need to use it."

Purge rubbed the back of his head. "Um... thanks, man."

Michael bounced his daughter into his arms. "Say goodbye to the villain, honey."

"Bah bah," the tiny tot gooed. Michael strode past Purge and left the boy to trudge into Fuse's office, his theme song just barely reaching past his throat.

&&&

Poster Found on Fuse's desk:

**Need Something to Do on New Years?**

Come to the

_**5TH ANNUAL**_

_**SPACE CHANNEL 5 NEW YEARS BASH! **_

_Food and Drinks Will Be Provided_

SPECIAL GUEST:

**President Peace**

Date: December 31

**Music and Dancing, Magic and Games**

**Countdown to the New Year!**

"A dance on New Years?" Purge noted. That was tonight, of all things. He had his work cut out for him. He rolled himself into Fuse's chair and opened up his desk, revealing a hidden laptop computer. He began slamming the keys at lightening speed, screen after screen giving way to his masterful, genius mind. A "ctrl" key here, "tab" there, one "ctrl-alt-delete" after the system froze, and- BOOM!

Blueprints to the station appeared in a holographic 3-D presentation in front of his face. He turned the 3-D station with the arrow key until he found Ulala's room. Click, drap, drop... Hee hee hee! This was gonna blow her mind! He could picture the smile on her face now, with the big lips and the pretty teeth-

SMACK! "Cut it out, self!" he fussed at himself. Also, another weird feeling accompanied the "NO!" feeling that went with that thought; a strange sensation that someone had poured water (or maybe something more the consistancy of nearly-solid Jello) down the inside of his chest cavity.

In his anger, he slammed his hand down on the keyboard, and PLOOP! up popped a file labeled "Ulala's Phone Book". On the list were people like Pine, Pudding, Jaguar (Purge shivered when he saw that Jaguar's name was decorated with a bunch of little pink hearts)... and Purge got an idea.

He checked the computer clock. 3:45.

"Dang." He remarked. He leaned back in his chair, resting his hand in his hands. "I'm good."

&&&

Okay, now, onto the "real" work: invitations. He picked up the phone and began dialing the number for Ulala's crush, Jaguar.

Wait-

He decided against it and dialed Pine.

&&&

"Hello. This is the Terry residence. Pine speaking."

"Hello, Pine. This is Purge. I-"

Click. Dial tone.

"Dangit." Redial.

"Hello, Terry residence. Pine speaking."

"It's Purge. There's this dance at Space Ch-"

Hang up again.

"Dangit!" Redial.

"(sigh) Pine speaking..."

"I was inviting you-"

Hung up.

"DANGIT!" Redial.

"WHAT?!"

"I'M NOT ASKING YOU OUT, PINE!"

A pause. "I'm listening."

Purge rubbed his head. "This isn't gonna be easy."

&&&

Well, after thinking about it until 4:00, Purge decided to call Jaguar and invite him. Ulala lo- liked him too much for Purge not to. He tried hard not to scowl as he punched in the numbers, sitting restlessly in his/Fuse's old chair.

Jaguar answered the phone after one ring. "Jaguar Hidalgo."

"Hi, Jaguar? It's Purge."

There was a short pause on the other line. Jaguar was noticeably confused and angry, even over the phone. "Why are you calling me?"

Purge took a deep breath. "Well, the Channel 5 station is having a New Year's dance, and Ulala would like it if you came."

Another pause, this one purely confused. "Then... why isn't _she_ calling me?"

Purge blushed a bit, leaning his head on his arm. "Well, she doesn't know I'm inviting you, it's kind of a surprise. I mean, she likes you a lot, and-"

"And you're going out of your way to invite me to her dance?" Jaguar asked, a bit surprised.

"Goes against my better judgement, but yeah- D'OH!" Purge pulled the phone away from his mouth whacked himeslf in the forehead a few times. "No no no! You do not say that! Moron!"

He groaned and put the phone back to his ear. Jaguar's voice purred back. "You like _her_ a lot, don't you?"

Purge blushed bright pink. "N- n..." He gave up and sighed. "Yes."

"That's noble of you."

"I know..." Purge sank into the desk, burying his face into his free arm. "Hey, Jaguar, do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

Purge was finally able to relax, leaning back in his chair. "Don't tell Ulala I invited you. Make it look like you came on your own."

Jaguar chuckled from his end of the line. "You know, you're a good kid."

"Thank-"

The three-way call buzzer sounded, and a shrieking voice suddenly shot out of nowhere. "PURGE!"

Purge jumped out of the chair, the phone falling onto the floor. Pudding's voice yelled out of the receiver. "Pine called me and told me you were inviting everyone to the New Year's dance! _WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL **ME**_!?"

Jaguar tried to console Pudding until Purge was able to get his ear to stop ringing and pick up the phone. The blonde one spoke in his calmest voice. "Now Pudding, calm down, this is nothing to get upset about."

Purge put the phone back onto the ear that HADN'T been shouted into. "Listen, Pudding, I was going to call you, but-"

"But _what_?! I'm not _good_ enough to come to some stupid _dance_?!"

"Pudding, please-" pleaded a baritone voice.

"Shut up, Jaguar!"

Purge held his hand over the bottom half of the phone to muffle the shouting. "Pudding, I just haven't gotten to you yet. You're at the bottom of Ulala's list-"

"I'm at the _bottom_ of a _list_?!" Pudding wailed.

Jaguar tried again to calm the ex-pop star down. "Pudding, calm down-"

"Shut up, Jaguar!" The blue-haired singer could be heard squeezing her phone on the other end of the line (the sound of straining plastic is easy to recognize). "Listen here, _Purge_, if I'm not important enough to call _first_ and _foremost_ when it comes to party invitations, then the party isn't important enough to _go_ to! So,_ BYE_!"

SLAM! It was again just Purge and Jaguar...

Purge let his head fall onto the desk, making a hollow CLUNKing sound. "Jaguar, do me one more favor?"

"Call Pudding back?" guessed the older man.

"Invite her. Please and thank you."

He hung up the phone and rested his throbbing temples. So, now he had unsuccessfully snuck into Fuse's office, done what he had come to do, gotten hung up on by the space police, screamed at by Pudding, and just told Ulala's crush that he had a crush on Ulala! Purge moaned and rubbed his forehead. "Don't stress, Purge. This is all for Ulala. You're doing this for Ulala..."

Purge yawned and looked out of the giant window, watching as a nebula rolled at a snail's pace past his window. He liked this office; nice, big, roomy. He could live in this thing... but he liked sharing a room with Ulala. He thought to himself, "If I was being held in this station by anybody else, would I be the same..."

He wouldn't. It was all about Ulala. He had challenged her authority over the airwaves, but she was nice enough to forgive him and try to give him a better life. She _rocked_. She was probably the first person ever who was nice to him. He had been laughed at for so much of his life... except for when he was doing school plays.

He loved being onstage in the guise of another person, where he could truly put his heart into something and be admired for it. People loved him as the Rat King in "The Nutcracker" production in 3rd grade. They loved him as The Beast in the "Beauty and The Beast" play in 5th grade. Even in bit roles, they always applauded...

But as himself, they laughed. In talent shows, when he would dance, they would laugh at him. They would laugh at his voice, at his skin, at his hair, at his clothes, parents, brothers, anything and everything associated with him. His knuckles clenched at the memory. He would burst into tears, shrink into nothing, hide behind his albino mother...

Unless he got angry. Then everything turned red in his eyes, and he wouldn't see straight. The blood would rush to his head, and he'd usually pass out, but whenever he woke up-

"PURGE!"

He clicked out of his catnap and turned in his chair. Ulala threw her arms around him, chittering about she had woken up alone and nearly had a panic attack. He blushed and hugged her back, his thoughts immediately leaving him. He checked the time; 6:00 a.m. It never failed.

&&&

"You ate breakfast with the Morolians?" Ulala asked, walking through the hallways, Purge's hand in hers. He nodded.

"Well, I ate breakfast, and the Morolians were there," he admitted, knowing he didn't reallly eat _with_ them.

"Oh, that's so cool! I'm jealous!" Ulala giggled in excitement and wiggled like a happy toddler. "I always wanted to eat with them, that's why I get up really early."

"And I thought you actually had a work ethic," Purge joked.

Ulala smiled wickedly at him and violently jerked his arm, sending him into the wall. He responded by jumping up behind her and trapping her in a headlock, ignoring her pitiful swipes at his head. He doubled over and forced her onto her knees, which wasn't easy because she was laughing so hard. "Ha! Whatchu got, only child? Whatchu got?"

"Hahaha! Lem- haha- lemme go-hahaha! Lemme go!" She got the idea to stop swiping at his head and ribbed his gut, which made him grunt and back away in pain. He jumped on him and pinned him onto the ground, pummeling her with all the strength she could muster. "Ha! Take that, wimpy boy!"

With a swipe of his leg, Ulala had been flipped off of him, and he was standing in a karate stance waiting for her.

She grinned maniacally, rubbing her arm like she was rolling up her nonexistant sleeves (she was wearing her Camouflage Costume). "Oh, you're in for it now!"

She pulled back her fist and- POW! Quick as lightning, he had A( blocked it, B( caught her arm in a vicegrip, C( flipped her over his shoulder, and D( got both of her arms behind her back to where she couldn't move them.

"One, two, three, you're out!" Purge let her go and got back onto his feet, leaving Ulala to stumble about in a dizzy way.

"Wow!" she gasped. "Where'd you learn that?!"

Purge looked at the ceiling and counted off on his fingers. "Um, I took a year of karate, about a week of tai-kwon-do from the neighbor, and I got up to my brown belt in judo before I got kicked out for drop-kicking the sensei-"

"You are so cool!" Ulala gasped. She balanced herself onto her toes and gazed into Purge's eyes. "Teach me how, teach me how, please please please!"

Purge blushed. "Um, I'm not..." He broke into a weak giggle out of the direct eye contact with the blue-eyed Ulala. "I'm not certified, but-"

"Oh, Purge, I was just joking." Ulala hugged him and laughed. "Come on, we've got a dance to get ready for."

&&&

Ulala had washed up and changed into her China suit, and was now re-applying makeup for the 5th time in an hour. The "worry-energy" she had been building up from wanting to tell Purge about the New Year's dance was now being transferred into her worrying about how she looked. She cooed to Purge nearly every second, "Something's up. Something's gonna happen tonight, I can feel it!", which made him blush and keep quiet for most of the evening.

Purge watched from the bed, casting a look over his shoulder every now and then and blushing at Ulala's beauty. It was odd seeing her without the makeup, for her eyes seemed much smaller... she could see that she had some Japanese ancestry. Man... he had agreed not to go to the dance, to make sure he didn't get in the way of Ulala and Jaguar, but now he was starting to get some pangs of remorse and jealousy and guilt for having pangs of remorse and jealousy.... Ugh. He hated being a teenager.

On the other side, Ulala would every now and then take a glance at Purge from her hidden bathroom behind the changing tube and giggle herself. He was... handsome wasn't a good word for her. Her definition of handsome was of something a little more on the rugged side. Jaguar was handsome, Purge was... was... undescribable. Definitely masculine, but smooth and streamlined. If he stretched the right way, the muscles bulged out of his arms, and it was a pretty sight that made her swoon. He was beautiful in the way a male horse was beautiful, implied strength without having muscles cut like a Greek statue. Even if she looked at his face the right way, she got shivers.

Ulala checked the time; 7:00 p.m. Dance would be starting about now. She finally stepped out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. "Well, Purge, you basically have run of the station for the rest of the night. Everyone'll be out dancing... Oh, are you sure you don't wanna go?" she pleaded.

Purge held up his hand. "Too many people, Ulala, I'm likely to make a fool of myself..." Purge muttered in a cynical way. "I'll probably won't be in the room when you decide to leave, though, call for me on the intercom."

"Where will you be?" Ulala asked.

"Somewhere with a TV." Purge yawned and rolled out of the bed. "I'll see you off, I'm going on a hunt for a plasma screen."

Ulala giggled and took Purge's hand. "You're the best..." She pulled him into a hug, which he gladly returned. "See you soon."

As they pulled away from eachother, Ulala took Purge's hand and kissed the back of it, showing some well-deserved affection (and getting rid of some excess lipstick). She skipped out of the door...

And poor Purge stood mystified. He stared at the back of his hand in amazement, marveling at the near-perfect lip-print left on his hand...

He laid his lips over it and kissed it himself, blushing at the action and quickly rubbing any and all of the lipstick off.

&&&

Reruns of "Tasty Cookin' " abounded on every station due to numerous New Year's Eve celebrations. Purge had joined yet another bored geek, Noize, in the breakroom, where they occupied time with every geek's favorite occupation; drawing various television characters as cats. Purge had just finished off a hasty rendition of Jean-Luc Picard as a jaguar when a though popped into his head. "Hey, Noize, why aren't you going?"

Noize scoffed. "Because kids _my age_ aren't allowed to go to the New Year's shin-dig without 'parental supervision'-" (He did the quotey thing with his fingers as he said it.) "- and nobody I know who's old enough is willing to spot me!"

Noize dove back into his portrait of Dianna Troy. "Ulala said-" (He put on a mocking tone) "-'Everyone'll be kissing at midnight, and you'll be disgusted'." Another scoff. "Like I'm some stupid five-year-old."

But that isn't what Purge was concentrating on. A new wave of emotion just flew into his throat, this one a mix between fear and that weird "I told me so!" feeling that doesn't have a name. "What?!"

"People always kiss on New Year's Eve, haven't you heard of that?" Noize stated, a bit surprised. "That's, like, the national pastime of New Year's!"

Purge reeled and fell back into his squishy breakroom chair, his head spinning. Ulala... and Jaguar? They wouldn't- would he? I mean, Jaguar- He had invited him, and he knew, so-

He had to go check. 11:54 p.m. He had time.

"Hey, Noize, hold old is an 'adult'?"

"Eighteen or older, wh-" Noize's head snapped up and caught Purge giving him a knowing, almost evil smile. The young one gasped in amazement. "YOU ROCK!"

&&&

Purge could barely see in the dark core of the Space Channel 5 broadcast station, for every single light had been dimmed to nearly black. But, despite this, he found his way to the edge of the extended floor and made sure his eyes stayed on Ulala, who was enjoying a slow dance with Jaguar to some 80's song he didn't like. Michael Jackson and his wife were giving Pudding and Pine dancing lessons. A large section of the floor was reserved for a special dance event, roped off by a curtain frame. A raised box of a stage sat high off of the dance floor, upon which President Peace himself oversaw the dance, waiting for his chance to sing, while the Moro-band played on.

Purge slunk along the side wall like a wraith, his expression stoic as he kept his sunglass-blurred eyes on his savior. Ulala shared an exaggerated, "notice that I luv you!" laugh with a much calmer, passive Jaguar, who would pat her head like the child she was (compared to him) every now and then. He felt wonderfully spectral, something almost unearthly as his cloak flapped about his legs, his back staying glued to the wall of the room. No one even noticed him... he might as well have been invisible.

And then President Peace started singing that stupid song. "This is my Happiness" boomed throughout the station, blasting from every speaker and being just quiet enough to not blow everyone's eardrums out. Jaguar and Ulala began to slow-dance, with made Purge's breath seeth and his fists clench. Even Peace's song wasn't enough to calm him down, for with every note the barrel chested titan sang, Purge found another reason to get angry and angrier as Ulala and Jaguar took step after step, gazing into eachothers eyes while his muscles began to ache...

The curtain opened up, revealing a glowing section of floor lit up with disco tiles. Ulala leapt onto the stage and began dancing by herself with the music, which made Purge relax immensely. It was obviously a rehearsed routine, something she and the station (possibly Fuse, who wasn't here to see it, nyeh-nyeh-nyeh nyeh-nyeh) had put together. He was finally able to breathe, and he smiled and instead watched her swing and gyrate as the song began to wind to its end. Okay, so Jaguar wasn't gonna kiss Ulala on the stroke of midnight, yeah. Purge should've known. Jaguar seemed like a good enough guy. He wouldn't, not knowing what he knew. The wall of the core formed then number 10, 9, 8, and Ulala kept dancing. 5, 4, 3-

And then Jaguar jumped in and swept her off of her feet, planting a kiss on her forehead at the stroke of midnight!

And Purge SNAPPED! His muscles clenched and his breathing became a roar, the pure energy of his anger rolling off of his body in waves of red flame! The energy of his fury reached into the speakers in the wall and BOOM! They all exploded in a radius around him, showering the frightened dance-goers with yellow sparks and bits of black mesh!

&&&

Poor Ulala had no idea what happened. All that she heard was a tortured scream, and suddenly the entire west side of the room was bright red. She thought for a second that someone had caught on fire, but that was soon put to rest by Jaguar grabbing her by the arm and pulling her out of the way of a charging, flaming Purge. His fist just barely escaped making contact with her face, the red flames around him instantly making her break out in a sweat. Purge landed on a tile which Ulala was supposed to land on, which shone a pink light from below and made Purge look all the more furious.

"TRAITOR!" Purge began to turn around, but his foot for some reason refused to move off of the tile. A loud, menacing laughter roared from all directions, and suddenly Purge was gone, leaving behind a blue shadow of himself that quickly faded; he'd been transported out of the room.

It was very quiet, minus Space Michael's children wailing for their mommy. People began to murmur, leaving the confused, still sweating, still shaking Ulala to stand in her place, staring at the spot where Purge used to be...

NOT DONE YET! One more chapter oughta clear this whole story up.


	6. Purge Kicks Some censored, and Blank Suc...

Purging Purge, 6

Ulala, going on her friends' advice, Ulala decides to try and rescue Purge from... probably a toss-up between the man you'd least expect and the man you'd most expect to show up. I've probably given everything away at that point, too.

Poor, jittery Ulala had to be consoled again, this time by Jaguar and (kinda) Pudding. Jaguar sat with Ulala, who was resting on a bench under a window, while Pudding stood nearby and looked _out_ the window, not really interested. A few members of the station's crew shuffled past them, muttering about how Purge had escaped the station, and had tried to take Ulala with him...

Jaguar held Ulala while she sat, her eyes staring blankly at her feet, her face pale. He rubbed her opposite shoulder, trying to get her to resond. "Ulala, you okay now?"

She had been silent since midnight. The vision of Purge's face as he disappated, that look of pure fury and shock, had burned into her very retinas, and nothing she could do could make it go away. That freak had lied to her, and had followed her to the new years dance and spied on her. Her head was reeling, her skin felt like it was on fire, and her mouth was dry as a desert. It was 12:30 now, and finally she decided to speak. "He's gone..."

"Yep" Pudding agreed, not looking at Ulala. She knew exactly what she was talking about. "Gone-a-roony."

"I thought he was good..." Ulala shook her head and place her hand on her temple, her mind still hazy. "I thought he was a good person, and now he tried to kill me..."

Jaguar's breathing suddenly caught in his throat; it was his equivalent to blushing. Uh oh, Ulala didn't notice who Purge was aiming for! "Um..."

Pudding flipped back her dreadlocks and yawned. Boredom, she cooed in her head, pure unadulterated boooooooooredom... hey, what was that over there? She focused her attention on the dark thing outside while Jaguar continued trying to talk to Ulala. She injected a thought that popped into her vacant head. "Purge was pra-rit-ty ticked."

Jaguar's muscles twitched; Pudding, shut up! She was making it worse!

"He tricked me... He wanted to trick me into liking him."

Jaguar twitched again at the words that came out of Ulala's mouth. "Um, Ulala?"

"He was planning this, I know it! Ulala jumped to her feet, finally feeling something for the first time in half an hour: ANGER. She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. "He used me, just like Fuse used me, and I _LET_ him!" she wailed.

"Ulala, calm down!" Jaguar counterred, grabbing her shoulders once again. She slapped them away.

"Shut up, Jaguar!"

Pudding suddnely laughed. "You sound like I did when I called Purge on the phone."

Jaguar's breathing stopped again. He jerked around to the blue girl, his teeth clenched in surprise. "Pudding!"

Ulala's anger blew out like a candle in a hurricane, her curiousity coming to the foreground. She turned to Pudding, resting her weight on one hip. "The phone?"

Pudding turned around, her expression, as Ulala's was earlier, blank. "What? Oh, Purge called us on the phone."

Jaguar, for the first time in his life, actually began to turn red. "Pudding, no!"

Ulala held her hand over Jaguar's mouth. "Shut up, I wanna hear this."

"And Purge invited us to the dance thing, and he didn't want you to know." Pudding went back to the window, watching the dark thing she had lost track of earlier and tracing its outline with her finger. "Jaguar said that Purge said it was a surprise."

Jaguar smacked his forehead. "He also said that Ulala wasn't supposed to _know_..."

Ulala turned on her heel, looking Jaguar straight in the eye. He was starting to get angry again, her foot tapping just like her mother used to do whenever Ulala got in trouble. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Jaguar sighed. "Purge invited us to the dance. He wanted to surprise you."

"He thought it was nice." Pudding remarked, watching as a pale spot formed on the dark thing outside.

Jaguar took another deep breath; man, if Purge found out he was doing this, he would kill him... "He really likes you, Ulala; I don't know what happened out there, but it wasn't his idea."

"He was kidnapped." Pudding's voice changed pitch suddenly; it was like she couldn't decide whether or not she was excited. She rapidly tapped the window. "See, that's where he went."

"WHAT!"

Ulala and Jaguar pushed Pudding away from the window and- BOOM! Away flew a small, black spacecraft, Purge's face pulling away from the window!

"He _was_ kidnapped" Ulala's muscles tensed. "Oh man, I've gotta rescue him- Wait."

Ulala shook her head. Why should she? Even if he wasn't still evil, he was still spying on her during the dance. Who knows what else he could've done while she wasn't watching? Ew... she got that Fuse-esque feeling in her stomache again.

"You're not gonna not save him, are you?" Pudding asked.

Ulala paused, then crossed her arms. "No."

"What!" Jaguar screamed.

"He doesn't deserve it." Ulala closed her eyes and stood firmly in place. "I'm not going. If the fate of the galaxy doesn't depend on it, I don't care."

Jaguar and Pudding looked at eachother, both sharing a weird moment of tension. Ulala, all of the sudden, had turned mean. She had good reason, of course, but it still wasn't like her. Pudding glanced at Ulala, then shook her head. "Man, she's turned into him."

The fist of realization punched Ulala in the chest. She snapped out of her stupor and grabbed Pudding by the arms, shaking her. "What did you say!"

Jaguar tugged at his hair stressfully. "Pudding, you're making her worse!"

Pudding, continuing her pattern of behavior, ignored Jaguar and kept talking. "Ulala, you dont' wanna rescue Purge because he was watching you at a dance? Geez, people stalk me all the time, and I don't care! Besides, he was mad at Jaguar, not you."

The blonde one was now so mad, he could barely speak. Ulala mused his thoughts for him. "He... was?"

"Yeah, Purge got all ticked when Jaguar kissed you, he was jealous," Pudding smiled smartly. "Watching jealous boys is a hobby of mine."

Ulala moaned in confusion. Aw, what now? Purge stilled tailed her, but he didn't try to kill her, so he stepped on her trigger tile and was kidnappe-

Woah. Her tile? That meant, if she had stepped there like she was supposed to, she woulda been kidnapped instead... wouldn't she have?

She tightened her headphones, pressing a button that linked her microphone directly to Noize's headset. "Noize, get the ship ready, I'm going after him."

* * *

Noize had traced the black spaceship to a large colliseum on Earth, a large white football stadium with an odd outer catwalk encircling the perimeter. As Ulala flew towards it, she marveled at the spectacular colors the catwalk was painted, millions of shades of every bright color imaginable; it was almost like looking at a giant flower. Even the guardrails were horn-like structures that fanned outward, terrible unsafe but very petal-like and pretty, which was why children were never allowed on the outer deck.

Ulala lept from the top of the RoverBoy (or whatever you call that thing) and landed just in front of a door, holding her microphone to her mouth and jutting her hand forward, successfully sending it straight through the door. She jerked her hand back suddenly, then checked the door again; solid.

"Prerendered background," she noted with a tone of disdain. She twisted the nob and walked inside.

"Her every step echoed as she snuck through the dark inside of the colliseum, fully aware..." Ulala paused for a second. "That the author had mistakenly put quotation marks at the beginning of the paragraph, making her descriptions turn into dialogue..."

Realizing her mistake, the author decided that the situation would make a really stupid joke and decided to keep it.

But, getting back to the actual story, the lights flashed on without warning, making Ulala's eyes burn and her throat tight-

Wait, that wasn't the lights. That was Purge wrapping his hands around her neck.

Indeed, the still-cloaked, sunglass-ed boy had Ulala's neck in a vice-grip, not to hurt her, but to hold her down. She tried valiantly to wedge her fingers between his hands to pull them apart, but to no avail. Her feet slipped on the grass of the stadium floor, sending her flying into the ground, Purge still holding on.

Someone else laughed.

Ulala scanned the rising seats of the stadium, and found the voice coming from the exact opposite of where she was: a television monitor on the ceiling. It was huge, pink, and most importantly, IT HAD BLANK'S FACE ON IT!

"Chief Blank!" Ulala gasped.

Blank chuckled from his side of the television, obviously relaxing inside of a desk invisible to Ulala. "Didn't expect to see me, did you?"

"Well, you were kinda last minute-" Ulala's sarcastic remark was cut off by Blank pressing a button, and Purge rudely slamming his knee into Ulala's shin. "YEOW!"

"I was not last minute! The author wanted me in this thing since the beginning" Blank angrily stood up from behind his invisible desk, the pink swirling background of the television monitor making Ulala both a little dizzy and nostalgic. He took a deep breathe and relaxed again. "But, still, I'm glad you're here. Nothing like utter humiliation from the two men you've bested in your little career."

That reminded Ulala! She turned to Purge, accidentally focusing on the reflection of herself in his sunglasses. "Purge, what are you doing? It's me, remember?"

Purge didn't respond, at all. His hands still kept Ulala pinned to the ground, his cloak forming a bit of a cage around her. Blank spoke.

"He can't hear you, Ulala. I'm afraid I made the mind-control beam a little too strong," the bald one bragged, not sounding apologetic at all. "But still, it wasn't hard to do..."

Blank pressed another button hidden somewhere off screen. Purge threw Ulala literally into the air and onto her hip, where she land somewhere close to the middle of the field after rolling for a couple of times. She drew her laser and aimed at Purge- only to find that he had one too, and in the half-second it had taken her to stand up and aim, he had met her on the field and drawn his. They each had their own laser pointed at the soft part of the neck where it meets the chin, fingers ready on the trigger.

It would've been a great picture, Blank thought.

"Oh, this is priceless! Just like Cowboy Bebop!" Blank pulled a camera out of his coat and snapped the two of them. "I didn't even ask him to pose!"

The thought flitted through Ulala's head: where's Blank if he could take a picture of the two of them? Her thoughts were scattered by Purge jabbing the business end of his laser into Ulala's nerve, but not doing anything else.

"Oh, Ulala, I'm glad that I got Purge instead of you." Blank mentioned. "You see, originally, I was going to kidnap you, and use your Dance Energy to take over the galaxy."

Ulala smiled smarmily. "Villains just need to orate, don't they?"

Blank scowled. "At least when we do, we know you'll listen." He leaned forward it the monitor, the lights glistening off of his shiny head. "Most people like me and Purge are not 'evil', we're just attention deprived. We need someone to pay attention to us. Which is what I was getting to."

Blank leaned back and pressed another button, which made Purge's face contorted and waves of red energy roll from his body. "I listened to Purge. I had him tell me every little thing about you, every thing you told him and everything he learned from watching you. He told me about how you need both lasers to shoot from a distance, or else you can't aim straight."

Blank pushed another button. Purge jumped back and high-kicked Ulala's hand, sending her laser flying into the lights and onto a seat in the stadium walls. She panicked and swiped the other one off of her leg, but she was already shaking from the nervousness caused by that one empty hand she had no idea what to do with. Purge rested back into emergency position, his gun aiming straight and steady at Ulala's breastbone.

"He told me about how your Dance Energy reflex can only be triggered when people are watching you."

Blank pushed another button.

BOOM! Purge shot Ulala's headphones straight off of her head, sending two neatly seperated halves of headphones onto the ground.

Televised Blank chuckled again. "Not so high and mighty without an audience, are you?"

It was true; now that Ulala knew she was truly alone, she had began to panic. Her breathing became laboured, and her knees were shaking so badly she was afraid of falling over. Her stomache turned to wax; she was completely helpless, and to top it off, it was a brainwashed Purge who was going to finish her off.

Brainwashed!

Ulala flicked the laser to the "Hey" setting. She sneered and lashed around to Televised Blank, who didn't show any signs of worry. "HA! I know how to cancel mind control, Blank! So-" she stuck out her tongue. "Nyah..."

"Actually, I was just getting to that point, as well." Blank (wouldn't you know?) pressed another button, and the red flames of Purge's Anger Energy grew higher. His once-annoyed face morphed into a full-on snarl, and his muscles bulged under his cloak (although Ulala couldn't see them). The air around him flared the bottom of his cloak, and gave his skin a frightening red aura.

And although my crappy description probably doesn't impress you, it sure as all get-out scared Ulala half to death.

Her eyes began to water as Purge's voice creeped through the pure energy; a whimper. He was in pain. He was breathing through his teeth, and every muscle in his face was straining beyond what a normal human could withstand. Ulala's heart felt a punch of pain; Blank was hurting Purge!

She turned her back on the boy and shouted at the screen. "STOP HURTING HIM!"

Blank smiled, despite being a little miffed at Ulala trying to change the subject, and continued with what he was going to say. "Purge's energy comes from within him. He's a bit like a battery, while you... well... you're more of a lightbulb."

Blank's hand pulled back on his desk and stayed in position, his muscles slightly straining... he was moving a joystick! Purge slowly walked forward, the energy of his anger billowing around him like a firey cloud of pure crimson. It surrounded him like a shield, and reached out almost as far as Ulala was tall (in her platforms, which made a difference); he barely even touched her with the very edge of his energy barrier, and made her break out into a heated sweat.

Blank laughed once again. "You see? Why base an empire around a dinky little link-in-the-chain like yourself when I hold the ultimate power source under my contro!l" The bald one's face twitched in surprise. "Hey, that's a good point. Let's have some fun while I can."

Televised Blank slammed his finger on the joystick! Purge abandoned his laser a jumped forward, knocking Ulala's gun away with a spin kick and throwing her into the ground with the mere swipe of his arm. She slipped onto her feet quickly, only for Purge to catch her by the stomach and flip her onto her back like a pancake.

It took her a minute to regain her thoughts; her brain was scrambled, and Televised Blank's laughing wasn't helping either. Purge's energy flared to where it looked less like a mist and more like a fire, even while he doubled over in agony. His cloak flapped in the invisible forces of the air, flaring up around his thighs and flashing his purple disco suit underneath. (Like the rating could afford him to flash anything else? (laughs)

The sound of Purge's crying was enough to kick Ulala back into gear. She jumped to her feet and rammed herself full force into his stomach, running HIM onto his back for a change. Despite the fact that her rubber clothes were now sticky and wet, she smiled that she never had before and pinned down Purge's arms, sitting on top of him for extra measure. "HA! Gotcha!"

Purge shook his head, and looked up at Ulala from behind his sunglasses. His face was still snarling, his buckteeth making him look sort of like a rat with rabies...

He blushed.

Ulala blushed too, but she didn't know why.

BOOM! Purge pulled a "Nala" kick to Ulala's gut and knocked her off of him, standing himself up and shaking like a dog. He closed his eyes and began to breathe, his face beginning to relax for the first time since the battle bega-

"PURGE, BEHIND YOU!"

Blank's warning did no good. Ulala jumped onto Purge's back and began hanging off of his cloak collar. He gagged for a second, then yanked his coat off, leaving Ulala on the ground once more. He jumped into a judo stance, disco suit gleaming in the lights. Televised Blank's screen lowered to the ground, providing Purge with a blinding pink backdrop. Ulala couldn't focus on either Purge or Blank, because doing so caused her eyes to tingle and her head to spin. She shielded her eyes with her hand and covered her body with Purge's discarded cloak.

"You put up more of a fight than I thought..." Televised Blank disappeared in the swirling pink of the television screen. "If you had just put that kind of effort into something useful like... martial arts, like Purge did, you'd stand a fighting chance... no pun intended of course."

Ulala wasn't paying attention. Her eyes had just focused, and she found herself watching Purge (or rather, Purge's sillouette) as Blank's screen made every muscle, every curve and point, jump out at her like a red rose in a dandelion field. She blushed and shuddered; she had gotten lost in his figure for no reason. And she still was lost, she was just now aware of the fact that she was lost, and it irked her.

Blank, she guessed, has pressed another button, because Purge picked her up and clasped her around the waist, holding her tightly to his body (but not hugging her). The Anger energy had subsided a bit, now simply flickering off of his body like Ulala's Dance energy did whenever she danced. Blank chuckled from somewhere in the television; it rose up to halfway between the ceiling and the ground, pointing towards the odd coupling of Ulala and Purge. The monitor bulged out in the middle, forming a dull point that faced Ulala and Purge directly.

"And now, the finale. Using Purge's energy, my hyper-cannon will obliterate you and everything you stand for for."

Ulala wiggled her arms, trying to get them free, but Purge had them jammed underneath his slender arms and wouldn't let go. Ulala looked for help in his eyes, but once again, couldn't find out how to see past the glasses. Unable to do much else, she pushed away from the pale male, but he remained stoic, like he was a freakin' rock or something (as Ulala was thinking at the moment). After a few pushes, she lost her breath, and once again looked up at Purge's face- oh no, the _light_. It was doing that thing again, that thing that made Purge look REALLY really... something she didn't know a word for. She shuddered and blushed again, her breathe escaping her in a pitiful moan that she which she could take back.

Something dropped out of the bottom of the television, landing softly on the ground... THE REAL BLANK!

"Bye bye..." Blank held up what looked like the stick part of an Atari joystick, his thumb hovering over the button.

"WAIT!" Ulala gasped and struggled in Purge's grasp. "NO! Don't fire that thing, you'll destroy Purge!"

She felt Purge's arms twitch, but ignored it for now. "What happened to your 'rule the galaxy with my ultimate power source' ramble?"

Blank snickered. "Stored enough power from him to run a million mind-control rays. Besides, this is the only way to keep you standing still..."

And, without any other word, he pressed the button.

But nothing happened. He stared at the trigger switch, shook it, and pressed it again... nope.

(Purge fangirls everywhere are breathing a collective sigh of relief.)

Ulala looked around, trying to notice anything different. Blank was screaming and jumping on his button thingy ("I knew I shouldn't have used the **censored** Dollar **censored** Store batteries!"), Purge had let go of her, and the TV monitor had fallen and nearly crushed the defenseless Blank, who ran and hid underneath a bench on the sidelines.

Also, she had stopped sweating. In fact, Purge didn't even look angry anymore. His body returned to its normal, slim, muscular sel- woah. Ulala mentally shook herself. Where did that come from?

Purge took off his sunglasses; his eyes looked dewey and wet. He looked into Ulala's eyes, and it was strange, because Ulala felt... trapped. Like she couldn't look away.

"You... were worried about me." Purge blushed, not looking away. He rubbed the back of his head in a nervous way.

Ulala blushed too, flicking back a lock of her hair. "I know, but... I couldn't just let you be kidnapped. I mean, you're my best friend, I can't let anything happen to you."

Purge's entire face lit up at the mention of the words "best friend". His fists clenched, and his breath caught in his throat. It was enough to make Ulala giggle; he was the mouse again. The happy mouse, the "just-found-a-piece-of-cheese" mouse, although something about his obvious satisfaction made it feel a bit deeper than just that.

"Really?" Purge asked, stepping forward slightly.

Ulala's cheeks were starting to get sore from her grinning. She placed her hand on Purge's arm, shaking him lightly. "Really."

Oh, I wish I could DESCRIBE the look on Purge's face. Truly, he was feeling wonderful! He was practically living out his dream: first, he had met Ulala, who he had practically worshipped since Blank's first attempt at the universe, lived with her, made friends with her, and was now having his life saved by her (although it didn't sound right in his head, he enjoyed it just the same). Not only that, but he was her _best_ friend now... he couldn't ask for anything better.

He launched forward. He just wanted to pick her up, hold her in his arms, let her know how grateful he was. His arms grappled Ulala's shoulders-

THWACK!

"**OW!**" The two friends both jerked backwards, each of them holding their foreheads in surprise and pain. Blank rushed between the both of them, picked up his trigger-switch (which weighed a LOT more than it looked like it should, and was really hard to throw), and swung himself around, smacking Ulala across her chest. He raised his hand to smack her again with the weighted switch, until Purge chopped it out of his hand and flipped the huge man onto the ground. Blank tried to get up, but Ulala slammed her big, platformed foot down onto his chest.

He looked up at the odd pair of humans. There was Ulala, who was keeping her eyes on Blank's face while Purge passed her one of her forgotten lasers. Happily smirking over her former boss, dressed rather impulsively in her damaged retro gear (she thought it was one of her more "macho" girl outfits), her expression said everything; I rock, you don't, so there.

Purge, on the other hand, was standing just as proudly, but behind Ulala. Typical teenaged arrogance, slyly surpressed by a sense of shyness and duty to the one in charge, Ulala. He shifted his weight to one hip, letting loose a weak, but all the more triumphant (not to mention cute-sounding) giggle. His suit still shimmered in the lights of the stadium.

"I don't think anyone'll mind if I turn Blank in unconscious." Ulala kicked her laser back onto the "chu" setting. "Do you?"

"Mm mm..." Purge shook his head no. "Not at all..."

Blank coughed, the weight on his chest imparing his breathing. Ulala tapped her toe onto his breastbone, pointing the laser at his head. "Anything else"

"Yes." Blank smiled. "You're an idiot."

Blank grabbed Ulala by the calve and threw her off of him! He jumped to his feet and tried to run, but instead met a shower of sparks and beads of glass, his vision blinded by waves of red. Purge snapped his hand around Blank's neck, lifting him off of the ground. His eyes tore through Blank's vision, the red energy slicing through his very bones; Blank knew, right at that second, what it left like to be a roast.

"You leave Ulala alone."

* * *

Texas stumbled away from the door to the stadium, holding her shoulder and her head at the same time. Pine sighed and steaded her sister with an outstretched hand, the other one cradling her forehead. "Texas, that's not how you break down a door..." Pine stepped forward. "Watch."

Pine leaned back on her foot, aiming her boot right for the spot above the doorknob-

BOOM! Blank shot through the door, taking Pine and Texas with him into the curb.

"Ow..."

Blank, despite just being thrown through a door, hurriedly began to run away at top speed. "THE GUY'S A MANIAC!"

"Who the" Pine and Texas shook themselves out of their trance just in time to see Purge fixing the door back together. "PURGE!"

* * *

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

"OPEN IT UP, PURGE!"

Purge held his back against the door, Ulala jumping to the handle and "chu"ing it into a melted, impassible heap of metal.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

"We know you're in their, Purge!"

"We've got enough to arrest you this time!"

It was practically impossible to tell which sister was screaming, but it wasn't important. Ulala yelled VERY LOUDLY, "Hurry, Purge, we'll go around back!"

"Let's head them off!"

"Right!"

Pine and Texas each ran away from the door, leaving Purge and Ulala to finally breathe again. Ulala took Purge's arm. "Come on, we can sneak you back to the station if we hurry."

Purge began to step forward... but he stopped, and shook his head. "No."

"No!" Ulala began to panic, and pulled Purge closer to her. "Look, I'm not _letting_ you get arrested!"

"And neither am I! I'm not doing time for beating up someone who deserved it." Purge sighed and rubbed his head. "World's not ready for me yet, Ulala... maybe I can head somewhere else, hide out for a while-"

Ulala's throat and chest twitched. Hide? "Purge, no!"

She threw her arms around him, jerking herself back quickly as her stomache suddenly stung like a thousand wasps were attacking her. Quick as she did it, Purge plucked off the top of his suit (it came apart at the waist relatively easy) and threw it away. "Metal had melted. Sorry about that. Did it burn you?"

Ulala's eyes got _wiiiiide_.

"Oo..."

Purge blushed as Ulala reached out a finger and stroked one of his ab muscles. Ulala mentally traced every line, every ab, in her mind; Purge's muscles were... oh, there was that word she couldn't find again. They weren't cut into him, but they protuded enough to where she could look at them and shudder, watch them ripple as he breathed, maybe even touc-

"Ulala?"

The pink-haired one shook herself, smacking her forehead with her palm. "Sorry, I... sorry..."

She finally dared to look at Purge, making sure her eyes went straight to his face. He was looking at her with a cocked eyebrow, slightly confused but... happy? He smiled "Ehm... yeah, hi. You okay, Ulala?"

Ulala pushed back her hair. "I just, uh... huh?" She noticed a dark spot underneath Purge's arm. "What's that?"

* * *

Pine and Texas rattled the other door, but to no avail.

"Man, did they trick us?" Pine asked herself.

"To the other door!" Texas cried.

* * *

Black. His entire back, covered neck to pantline in a twisitng, coiled web of a black dragon with wild yellow eyes. Two clawed arms stretched out past his sides and framed his ribs; his lower back was painted up with wild flames of yellow and red. Once again, Ulala couldn't keep herself still as she traced the pattern of Purge's enormous tatoo with her fingers.

"It's so... dark..." She LOVED tatoos. She'd never had the guts to get one herself, for she had heard that they hurt, but the concept of someone else having one, especially a guy, drove her wild. The bigger it was, the better, and now that she knew Purge had one, she could barely contain herself. She poured herself over him, standing close enough to where Purge could feel her breath on his neck. Every now and then, she would run her fingers down his sides, just to watch him shiver, because him shivering made the scales on the salamander dragon (the tatoo's name) slink like a snake across his back, which made her stomach feel like it was slinking like a snake, and she LOVED it!

Purge couldn't exactly say that he wasn't enjoying it, either. Every touch of her hand made him shiver, every breathe made him swoon. He had had some fun explaining how he had gotten it; it was a birthday present. 16th birthday, actually, and his two older brothers had paid for it. The Towlow side of his family had always gotten tatoos on their 16th birthday, male and female, and he had decided on the salamander dragon simply because it consisted of his three favorite colors, black, red, and yellow.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

"Dang it, it's still stuck!"

"PURGE! You're in there somewhere!"

They two of them jumped and clung to eachother, their shivering finally quelled by sheer fear. Purge and Ulala exchanged one last glance, gulped, and kissed eachother simultaneous on their opposite cheeks. There was a moment where neither of them moved, each one frozen with their lips on the other's cheekbone, before they were finally able to speak again.

"Wait, so you?"

"Yeah, exact same."

"No way..."

"Woah..."

BOOM BO-

CRACK!

In the half-second it had taken for Ulala to turn around, Purge was gone, vanishing into thin air as Pine and Texas burst through the door.

* * *

EPILOGUE.

Ulala got back to the station to find she had been moved into a different room, one that was big enough to fit a widescreen TV, an oak dresser, her old changing tube, an actual nightstand, a DOUBLE bed, and a bookshelf, all with room to spare. She still had a private bathroom, and a walk-in closet so she could look at each outfit without trying them on, which she loved. She spent a week of her built-up vacation time simply getting used to her room, soaking in the double bed and learning how to get everywhere from her new room.

Last day of her vacation, two things happened that made her day: Blank was suddenly and mysteriously fired, and Purge sent her a postcard. Inside, Purge had written saying that while he _was_ hiding, he didn't have a specific place that he _was_ hiding. He also said to look for him whenever she got back to work. A lip print was placed on the stamp block (there was no stamp); Ulala kissed it sweetly and giggled.

While back at work, Ulala would hear a noise behind her. Turn around, and there was Purge, although he woud disappear into the shadows as soon as she spotted him. She would hear the familiar Morolian secret "ding-dong", and her ratings shot up by about 30 every time. Purge had apparently achieved Elvis-like spottable quality among all of the tv viewers. It kept Ulala in the top-ten list, which she appreciated, but was terribly pained by how she had no way to pay it back.

Purge, on the other hand, was having a blast. He likened himself to the crew of the Cowboy Bebop, drifting to wherever the space-currents took him. Twice he had stopped by at his old house (once because his younger brother had hit 16, and he had to pay for his tatoo (Papa Smurf and Smurfette), once in orbit around the Space Channel 5 (he left Ulala his card), twice to the New West Edmunton Mall (where he could pay for his ridiculously expensive hotel room with ease, for his family was LOADED), and a couple of times to any other place he felt like. He kept a close eye on Ulala, as close as he could without scaring her. It was fun, popping in on her reports; just long enough to be seen, short enough to where he didn't do anything stupid.

Well, there was one time where he tripped over a tree root, but Ulala covered him up pretty well by "accidentally" shooting the camera.

Yep, life was good. Wouldn't have it any other way. And on particularly boring nights, he would remember Ulala stroking his back and gushing over his tatoo, and how the two of them kissed eachother exactly the same way at exactly the same time. Although, he reminded himself often, it wasn't her cheek he was aiming for...

Good times, man.

DONE! DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE, THIS STORY IS FINISHED! DONE! NOTES!

MAN, did I cut the the battle scene with Blank DOWN! I originally had them having this big climactic battle, and there was more about how Purge's anger turns into energy and fries electric things and junk, but IT JUST WOULDN'T FIT! It's a whole lot shorter than I thought it would be. But it works.

More Pine and Texas. They're just fun to work with, despite the fact that I hate them. They're just REALLY fun to, like, smash into curbs and junk.

Sorry, distracted by bad Inu-yasha dubbing.

I told you I'd make Purge topless somehow. It's amazing how much I had to cut back to make this thing G-rated though. But I'm sure that you people will have tons of fun filling it in yourselves.

Something went wrong with the formatting during this story, and some of the puncutation got deleted. If you see an instance where this happened, and I didn't fix it, alert me in an ANONYMOUS review so I can fix the problem and delete the review later.

And I now have border formatting for seperating scenes, because refused to let me use my old system of three ampersands... grrr. This website is getting less and less user friendly...

Okay, I'm done. Story's finished, write your own. Later.


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